When you&qt;&qt;re using your computer, you expect that it will work whenever you want it to. You expect to be able to turn on your computer, do what you need to do, and have a good experience overall. But when things begin to happen to interrupt your computer time, this is not only frustrating because your computer or laptop isn&qt;&qt;t working, but also because you don&qt;&qt;t know exactly what the problem is.

For many computers, problems can stem from memory troubles. If you&qt;&qt;ve had your computer for a long time, you might want to look out for these common memory problems:

The blue screen of death

If you&qt;&qt;re going to boot up your computer or you&qt;&qt;re in the middle of an activity and you get the &qt;&qt;blue screen of death&qt;&qt; on your PC, you might be having troubles with the computer memory. When this screen happens once and then doesn&qt;&qt;t seem to happen on a later boot up, you will want to bring your computer into a repair shop anyway to get the memory looked at. While it might seem like a minor annoyance, it can become a major problem if you use your computer for important tasks. Make sure that you backup all of your files and programs if you can get back on the computer.

The computer acts strangely

While this isn&qt;&qt;t a very specific diagnosis or symptom, any computer behavior, like a blank screen for no reason or crashing more often than usual and for no reason can also be signs of a memory issue. If you&qt;&qt;ve been running certain programs together without any troubles before, but suddenly your computer shuts down whenever you try, it may be a big sign of memory troubles.

Likewise, if you notice that your computer can&qt;&qt;t handle multiple big memory programs at the same time, it might be a sign for an upgrade or a replacement of your current memory. Things like video games and photo applications are the biggest programs you have, so this is where you might see these kinds of problems. If your computer crashes as you use these programs, you need more memory.

The computer just won&qt;&qt;t start

While it might seem like your computer is simply dead, faulty memory can also cause your computer to not boot up. Replacing the memory is much cheaper than replacing the computer, so try that first before you completely give up. If you hear long beeping noises when you try to boot, that is a sure sign that the memory is having troubles.

The screen is distorted

When your computer is having troubles showing the graphics on your screen – it might also be a sign of a computer memory issue. Of course, it could also be that your video card needs replacing, too.

What can you do?

The good news is that memory problems are generally easy to fix with new memory. But if you&qt;&qt;re not sure what is wrong with your computer, you may want to take it to a certified computer repair shop or send it back to the manufacturer. They will:

• Test the computer
• Try replacing the memory
• Look at the rest of the circuitry
• Test out the fan
• Check the connections

When the testing is done, the repair center should be able to tell you what is going on with your computer and what needs to be fixed.

Now, you can simply try to replace your memory to see if that does the trick, but if something more major is happening, you might want a qualified repair specialist to deal with the issue. However, you can have your computer checked out first and then does the memory repair on your own if they tell you that the memory is the issue.