System Properties displays wrong RAM size

  • Thread starter Thread starter Arthur J. Montana
  • Start date Start date
A

Arthur J. Montana

I have a laptop that came with 512MB of RAM. When I run "System Properties"
it displays only 256MB of RAM. Yet, when I run "System Information" program
from Accessories/System Tools, "System Summary" shows 512.5MB of RAM. I've
run memtest86, which seems to show 256MB, but when I use the cruicial.com
memory scan, it shows two modules of 256MB of DDR RAM.

Does anyone know if this discrepancy reflects a bad memory module, or is it
a software glitch (and the computer is acutally making full use of 512MB of
RAM)? The computer (laptop) runs fine.
 
Never experienced that exact problem before. To see if the OS is using
all the memory, try opening task manager, go to performance tab, and
see how much total physical memory there is, and how much is in use.
If the total is about 512MB, then I'd wager the OS is using everything.

If you really want to see if there is a hardware issue, try booting up
with just one memory chip in. See if everything detects the chip
(though obviously everything is gonna run pretty slow). Then swap out
the chips, and see if system properties, memtest, etc see the other
chip. I'd wager that one of them is gonna be funky.
 
Thanks for your reply,

My laptop has a 256MB internal memory card and a single card expansion bay,
which also has 256MB stick of DDR. I removed this expansion strip and
booted up the machine. "System Properties" showed 192MB and "Task Manager"
showed 196MB. When the expansion stick was in place, "System Properties"
showed 256MB and "Task Manager" showed 265 MB. However, "System
Information" showed 512.50MB. Hence, the discrepancy. Now, with the
expansion stick removed, "System Information" shows 256MB - not the 512.5
that showed with the expansion stick in place.

In short, with the expansion stick removed, all three RAM scanners show
about the same thing (the only significant difference being 64K
ifference - 192 vs. 256 - between System Properties and System Info). I
suspect this difference is due to the fact that the video card is now
feeding off the internal memory stick.

Here's where it gets tricky. With the expansion stick removed, I cannot get
a wireless connection from the internal wireless card. I now have to
hardwire my internet connection. When I reinstalled the expansion stick,
the system failed to boot properly. The screen was blank, and I got a 1-3-3
tone during post, which for PhoenixBios apparently means a 64K memory
failure. I've removed the expansion stick and reinstalled several times and
still the same result.

Any ideas? It seems like I've made it worse.
 
Good News,

I reinstalled the expansion stick one more time. This time, there were no
POST beeps and all system scans show 448MB of RAM. The wireless is working
fine too. All systems go.

THANKS AGAIN!!
 
Good News,

I reinstalled the expansion stick one more time. This time, there were no
POST beeps and all system scans show 448MB of RAM. The wireless is working
fine too. All systems go.

THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR HELP!!
 
Back
Top