PC lying about how much RAM installed

MercilessKiller

Just making sure you've tried one option

Are you using dual channel ram? If so 2 * 256mb of Ram would be detected by the PC as one 256mb of ram as far as i am aware.. just run a lot faster!

It is very strange

calleyw

dccarm wrote:

Is it not the case that some motherboards don't like RAM sticks to be of matching size? (Or did I dream that?) I remember vaguely somewhere once being told that if I wanted to upgrade my RAM with an extra stick I needed to buy one that was higher or lower than the stick presently installed.

Never heard of that before but I have do remember when it was simms rather than dimms you had to put in matching pairs.


Yours


Calley

leesmithg

Maybe your motherboard can only take a maximum amount of r.a.m, thus showing this.

Whats is your ops and how old is your system?

calleyw

MercilessKiller wrote:

Just making sure you've tried one option

Are you using dual channel ram? If so 2 * 256mb of Ram would be detected by the PC as one 256mb of ram as far as i am aware.. just run a lot faster!

It is very strange

I have no idea what type of ram it is. But it still does not get around the fact that when piece of ram in the righthand slot it say the machine has 0 ram installed.


Yours


Calley

calleyw

leesmithg wrote:

Maybe your motherboard can only take a maximum amount of r.a.m, thus showing this.

Whats is your ops and how old is your system?

The machine was bought and built in december 2004 and I am windows XP home edition SP 2.

I am sure the paper work says 1g max for memory. I will pull it out and have a look I will also open up the machine and see what mother board it is and do a google.

But to me this still does not get around the fact that when ram is only installed in the right hand slot the machine says it has 0 (Zero) memory installed.

Yours


Calley

calleyw

wonderfullife wrote:

Hi
If I'm reading this right, what your saying is that the r slot is working but not showing to be working on your pc. Its definately not bad ram then as you say, I think even if you had a onboard graphics card and that was using 256mb ram it would still show up on your pc.
I would definately check my BIOS and see if you can spot anything odd.

I will have another look in the BIOS and see if I can see anything strange.

Yes that is right when there is ram only in the righthand slot the pc boots and any system checker software like Belarc it tells me 0 (Zero) ram installed. Which is of course impossible as the pc boots. Which it would not do if it was dodgy slot or ram.


Yours


Calley

leesmithg

Are you using PC100/133 DDR or DDR2 r.a.m.?

Is this the first time this has happened?

calleyw

leesmithg wrote:

Are you using PC100/133 DDR or DDR2 r.a.m.?

Is this the first time this has happened?

I have a feeling that is is PC133 no idea if it is DDR or DDR 2 ram.

I have no idea when this problem started. The pc was running a slow so wanted to see how much ram was in it. When it said 256mbs I was confused as I know that I bought an extra ram.

That is when I found out what was going on. Something strange is going on but it must know the ram is there as other wise the pc would not boot with ram only in that slot.

I am hoping that it is using 512mbs of ram. But I am thinking of getting a 512mb/1g of ram and stick it in the slot that I know works.


Yours


Calley