Memory Inconsistency Problem

[elcucococo]

Hi, I've been having some RAM problems with my laptop computer for some time now.

My computer is firewalled and virus-free, has all the necessary Windows and hardware updates, and I've recently reformatted and re-installed a fresh version of XP.

However, the lack of memory (RAM) is causing my computer to hang-up during normal web browsing sessions.

After I ran BurnInTest (great software BTW) I noticed that I have two 256MB slots of RAM installed, however, my Total Physical Memory is only 382 MB.

Can anyone explain to me why my total Physical Memory is not 512MB (256MB x 2)?

thank you very much in advance!

[David (PassMark)]

Try running RAMMon to get more details of the RAM you have installed.
http://www.passmark.com/products/rammon.htm

Also RAM is pretty cheap nowadays. According to the manual for this laptop, it takes,
256-MB DDR1 synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) at 333 MHz, expandable to 2.0 GB.

So you should be able to buy an upgrade to 2GB.

[elcucococo]

Try running RAMMon to get more details of the RAM you have installed.
http://www.passmark.com/products/rammon.htm

Also RAM is pretty cheap nowadays. According to the manual for this laptop, it takes,
256-MB DDR1 synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) at 333 MHz, expandable to 2.0 GB.

So you should be able to buy an upgrade to 2GB.

Thank you, passmark. I did as you suggested and installed the RAMMon software. The results are posted here: http://fruit.comule.com/RAMMon-Info.html

I will take your advice and use this information to purchase some new RAM for my computer.

However, the lingering question which brought me to this forum in the first place, is "if I have 512MB of RAM, why is my Total Physical Memory only 382MB?"

Various memory tests have shown no errors are detected in the installed hardware.

[David (PassMark)]

Have a poke around in the BIOS settings. It might be that some of the RAM has been allocated to something else, like the AGP video card.

[elcucococo]

Have a poke around in the BIOS settings. It might be that some of the RAM has been allocated to something else, like the AGP video card.

Passmark, you are correct. I found out that my computer has an integrated video card on the motherboard that uses exactly 128MB.

Therefore, the mystery is solved: 512MB - 128MB = 382MB.

And, yes, I desperately need more memory. Thank you for your help and I hope this thread helps someone else in the future.