The last few months I have been noticing strange things on my iMac. Restarts or shutdowns would freeze up the computer or make the kernel crash. I would get periods of time where the iMac seemed to pause or freeze randomly. (Random Access Memory?) After exhausted amount of time and energy spent, not just on my part, I believed I figured out the problem. BAD RAM.

I had purchased the RAM (Patriot) from Frys on my birthday 2006. $189.99 for 2 x 1GB sticks. A good deal @ the time and VERY GOOD compared to Apple memory. (Apple is still $300). The vast improvement of speed was apparent when first installed. Everything seemed to be moving smoothly. Well, needless to say it didn't last as long as I wished it had. I had never really taken advantage of any warranty before. with anything I had bought. I was determined not to spend any more money ($50 now for 2GB) to correct the problem. So, of to the Patriot Memory website to contact them about authorizing an RMA on the RAM. It took a day or two to be contacted back, but they did issue a RMA #. I went to the USPS office just down the street from my office to mail off the package of RAM and paper work associated. I purchased Insurance, and Delivery Confirmation and paid for First class shipping (it's within CA so paying extra for Priority was a waste). 

It's been a week, but I got an email from Patriot today with an UPS tracking number! Hopefully by Monday/Tuesday I will have 2GB RAM again! 

So in closing I just wanted to say, if you have a warranty, USE IT!