Yeah, that's what I feared. I just bought it too. $10 for 256 after rebates. I thought I'd try everything else before I accept that it's a dud. Are there any other ways to tell if it's the chip or not? Seemed to work fine for a while, and it counts up perfectly when I first turn on the machine. It's only when I do a hard reset using the reset button that it doesn't count up all the way. I had this problem before on my last machine too. And this may be a stupid question, but does slot order matter? I have a 256, a 128, and a 64. I've heard before it has to be in a decreasing order if they aren't all the same. Not sure if there was any truth to that though.