Half the memory?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Maincat
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Maincat

Win XP Pro SP2. Athlon 2400+, Asus A7V333, Via KT333 Chipset.

I have three 512mb sticks of memory in three slots, yet the memory is
reported as only being 768 total.

768 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'DDR 1' has 512 MB
Slot 'DDR 2' has 512 MB
Slot 'DDR 3' has 512 MB

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Steve
 
Maincat said:
Win XP Pro SP2. Athlon 2400+, Asus A7V333, Via KT333 Chipset.

I have three 512mb sticks of memory in three slots, yet the memory is
reported as only being 768 total.

768 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'DDR 1' has 512 MB
Slot 'DDR 2' has 512 MB
Slot 'DDR 3' has 512 MB

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Steve
Click to expand...
The memory could be the "wrong" type. There is now memory made with
higher density chips that may not be compatible with your board, much
like they have done for most of the history of PCs.
 
Maincat said:
I've identified one faulty slot. I'm now getting 1 gig from the other two
slots.
Click to expand...

Concentrate on just the bad slot. For the following, only use the bad slot.

Unplug the power, remove the RAM from that slot and visually inspect the
slot. There could be a bent pin, so check the pins to see that they are
all physically similar. I use a strong Halogen light for inspections like
this, at a distance of 6".

If that particular memory slot has never been used, there can be manufacturing
residue on the slot contacts. To remove the residue, try removing and inserting
the RAM five times. Then, reconnect the power and test.

If the first stick you tried in the bad slot doesn't work, try another.

While it is possible for a unique signal to have gone bad (like a chip
select), many of the pins are shared, so the signals themselves are
probably not fried.

Paul
 
Maincat said:
Win XP Pro SP2. Athlon 2400+, Asus A7V333, Via KT333 Chipset.

I have three 512mb sticks of memory in three slots, yet the memory is
reported as only being 768 total.

768 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'DDR 1' has 512 MB
Slot 'DDR 2' has 512 MB
Slot 'DDR 3' has 512 MB

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

It sounds like you have memory that is incompatible with your motherboard.
The symptoms that you describe are classical of fitting memory modules that
are double sided (i.e. they have chips on both sides of the board), but your
motherboard is only able to see the chips on one side of the board.
 
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