ASUS K55A
In Reaper, with 8 midi tracks, drum track going to Cakewalk SI Drums and 7 others going to SampleTank 3. I was fishing through samples while looping a short section. All was going fine for a while and then it locked up. Forced shut down was the only way out. The PC restarted in some guest user I haven't seen in a few years. I restarted manually and all is back to normal. But, I wonder if the rapid loading/replacing sample in ST3 cause my RAM to choke out.

I currently have 4GB. Crucial .com says 8 is the max. Around $18 for 2 2GB sticks. Should I go for the max? Is there any particular brand or type of RAM I should install on this laptop? Crucial .com shows 2 compatible sticks of RAM. I've only upgraded RAM on one other computer and that was 10 years ago.
I'm assuming it has 2 2GB stick in it. Do I need to keep them all same brand?
Does adding RAM cause other components to work harder?

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Does the noise in your head bother me ?