Just now saw your reply, life caught up with me. 
It has never given me a Sad Mac or death chimes without someone/thing pressing the interrupt key combo. It's been super reliable for almost 20 years, minus the bombs. The only pattern I've seen is that the bombs usually only appear when the computer is sitting idle for 30-60 minutes. If I remember right, when I was using it regularly as a kid it crashed (any type - freezes, sudden gibberish on the screen, bombs, etc.) so rarely during normal use that it wasn't a problem. It did happen, but no technology is perfect right? 
Next on my list of "tests" is turning it on and leaving it alone while watching with a stopwatch to see if it ever bombs and, if so, how long it takes. Going to do that a few times to see if my pattern is actually a pattern or just a coincidence.
Taking out a stick of memory without replacing it and using the computer won't cause any problems long-term will it? I'm mostly just curious about what's causing the bombs, it's not enough of a problem by itself to warrant fixing.
It has never given me a Sad Mac or death chimes without someone/thing pressing the interrupt key combo. It's been super reliable for almost 20 years, minus the bombs. The only pattern I've seen is that the bombs usually only appear when the computer is sitting idle for 30-60 minutes. If I remember right, when I was using it regularly as a kid it crashed (any type - freezes, sudden gibberish on the screen, bombs, etc.) so rarely during normal use that it wasn't a problem. It did happen, but no technology is perfect right? Next on my list of "tests" is turning it on and leaving it alone while watching with a stopwatch to see if it ever bombs and, if so, how long it takes. Going to do that a few times to see if my pattern is actually a pattern or just a coincidence.
Taking out a stick of memory without replacing it and using the computer won't cause any problems long-term will it? I'm mostly just curious about what's causing the bombs, it's not enough of a problem by itself to warrant fixing.