dead ram & win 98

my pc started acting funny & after 2 days of trying to reinstall win 98 & about 20 hdd reformats , i tested my ram ( 2x256mb kingston pc3500) the both error in about 1miniute , could this be why i cant get windows back in ( i know dumb ?) & how could it happen ? was running SETI 24/7 for almost 2 weeks without a problem can ram just die like that ???

oh btw , can you belive windows never said anything about my bad ram ??? does this mak any sense