Help With Ram not all memory being used

[bluefish1405241537 0]

Hello. Recently, I upgraded the memory on my computer. Previously it had 192mb, and I added 256mb. I installed the RAM properly: it works fine, but it seems that it is now only recognizing the 256mb RAM chip, and ignoring the 192mb (two chips). E.g. when I go to the system menu (Win XP), it only says 256mb of RAM, but when summed it should be 448mb. Is this normal? Is there a way to fix it? Thanks in advance.

[jimmy89 0]

im not sure what could be going on there but it might be that your 192mb chip has died! you can try taking out the new chip and seeing what happens, see if the computer boots at all. try changing the DIMM slots they are in, swap them around. good luck-jimmy

[yuhuu 0]

yess,,I would do what jemmy adviced, and I would give some details..First, try to use just one of your memories and boot with one of them..If it works with both,,you will probably have to do some bios configuration..I dont know how to do it,,but it could be easy..Is the first time I read that there is a 190 mb memory..could you explain what kind fo computer you have ?? That will help us a lot in finding a possible solution..Cheers..

[bluefish1405241537 0]

The thing with the 192mb, is that it is two RAM cards - 64mb (don't ask me how old the computer is) and 128mb. I figured out the problem by experimenting. It turns out that the 64 conked out when I was fiddling with it (I'm not surprised), and the 256 was incorrectly labeled and packaged, when it was in fact 128 (as seen when it was isolated). The problem when all three were in together was that the two 128s were combining to make the 256, but since I expected the 64 to be contributing too I did not think of the possibility. Thanks for all your help.

[Grafitti 0]

Could it also be that your new chip actually IS 256 MB, but your computer won't show it as more than 128? Have you taken the chip down to a service center and asked them to test it?

[wutske 0]

if you paid for 256Mb and got 128Mb I would go back to the shop ... Another possibility is that you're using double sided memory. In that case, you can only use 2 slots (normaly, this depends from board to board, but usualy it's because the motherboard can only handly a certain amount of memory banks).

[issdiscovery04 0]

If your laptop ever recognized 448mb of ram then your 192mb stick probably burned out. If 448 never appeared in the system menu then something may be incompatible on your motherboard.If the stick didn't burn out(haven't personally seen this yet), then knowing the motherboard brand or laptop brand and the brand of the two sticks would be helpful. Also, the manufacturing year of the laptop would be useful if you know it.

[smyke89 0]

i have seen this problem.. but you should have told us more details about the motherboard and ram you are using...if you have a older motherboard, you may have slots for both SDRAM memories and DDRAM memories... and the problem here is that if your 192 ram were installed on your SDRAM slots, when you installed the DDRAM cards, it stopped recognizing your SDRAM... it's not that it's something wrong with either your RAM or motherboard, but this is how motherboards that have slots for both memory types work.....if you will tell us exactly what motherboard and RAM memories you have... it will be easier for us to give an answer....Smyke

[HellFire121 0]

Theres also the possibility that your graphics card doesn't have it's own memory and it needs to dig out of the ram. If this is the case you'll see an option in the bios that allows you to change how much memory it uses. I'm not sure what it's named in the bios because my video card has dedicated ram, but you can try to look for something like agp memory size or shared memory. Otherwise if that doesn't work you will need to check if you actualy got what you payed for.-HellFire

[Ozwaldo 0]

Try installing the largest memory module (256) in the first slot, tipycally labeled "slot 0" in the motherboard.You must check your motherboard documentation, maybe you need a BIOS update, or just the mainboard doesn't support more than 256Mb (I don't think so, but is a possibility)

[ginginca 0]

Do either of them work in another motherboard? (Might help with your troubleshooting - if you have access to another machine).