Yes, Roger......it may.
I've written detailed explanations of how to clean dirty ram many times in this and other forums.
I've been an electronics tech for over 40 years now....this stuff ain't nothing new to me.
Just a little dirt between those tiny little legs coming off the side of a ram chip can cause a short circuit between the legs resulting in failure.
Whenever I get a funky ram stick or video card with ram chips on it, I pull the offending unit and take it to the kitchen sink where I wash it thoroughly with warm water, dishwashing detergent and an old toothbrush, concentrating on the ram chips themselves, not the rest of the card and of course on the edge connector as well.
Then a good rinse with warm water to displace any soapy residue. Follow that with a very thorough rinse with denatured alcohol (isopropyl alcohol will work, if that's all you have)
Let the ram stick or vid card air dry in a warm and dry place for several hours. (Overnight is good too)
Then reinstall and test. I save over 90% of bad ram and video cards that way.
My own vid card started giving me fits with colored blocks running all over the screen, about a year ago.
I washed it, set it out in the sun and breezes for several hours and reinstalled it.....it's been running faultlessly ever since.
If the ram is really bad, it will never show up as sometimes bad and sometimes good.....you're going to have to throw it out and buy a replacement anyway.
Washing it first to see if you can save it.....costs you NOTHING!
Per my own experience, you have a 90+% chance of saving it.
You need to be testing your ram with a known reliable program like "Memtest86".
Run it from a boot disk to bypass your OS, hardware drivers, etc.
Good Luck,
Andromeda43