Memory not recognised

[gord_ie]

Hi all, I am running a Packard Bell notebook with Windows XP Home with SP2 installed. My issue is that not all of my memory is being recognised.

The laptop has 256mb installed however when using the System icon in Control Panel it states that I have 192mb of RAM. According to my documentation the laptop can handle 1gb of memory. I purchased another 512mb of RAM and when installed with the original 256mb the System icon says that I have 448mb.

I have tried installing the 512mb of RAM on its own and the System icon says that I only have 192mb? I have 2 slots for memory and I get the same 192mb result when the 512mb of RAM is installed in either of them.

With both the 256 and 512mb installed I entered BIOS and it provided the following info:

System Memory is 640kb
Extended Memory is 457216kb

What is going on?

Grateful for any and all advice.

Thanks

 

[LookinAround]

It might have something to do with your video card (you;d need give specs on your computer make/model, motherboard and video card to know more)

Some video cards come with their own memory. (the faster and a bit more to much more expensive)

Other video cards have NONE of their own memory and must allocate its memory out of main memory. So the chunks of memory that disappear could be getting assigned for use by your video cardd.

 

[gord_ie]

Laptop is Packard Bell 'i go' s/n 100805280130

Video card is Radeon IGP 340M

The thing is with the original 256mb installed it shows up as 192mb and when I change this for the 512mb it also shows up as 192mb. It is also running like a dog which is why I started to look at the RAM.

 

[LookinAround]

To get a more complete picture, would also to get a report you could you provide

Try Everest Home Edition to get the specs.
Download from here and run it
- Click Reports->Report Wizard
- Get a Summary report in plain text

then attache the text file back in a text

And while you're at it, go to this link https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/updated-4-step-viruses-spyware-malware-removal-preliminary-instructions.58138/ and just do Step 7 to run a HijackThis and also attach report as well

 

[gord_ie]

I have attached the reports as follows:

7 Oct 08 is the Everest report with 256mb installed
7 Oct 08 512mb is the Everest report with 512mb installed

What I read from these reports is that the video card takes 64mb hence I am left with 192mb. The second report also suggests that my motherboard can oly hand 512mb (256mb per slot). Is this the case?

I have not attached the other report but can do if you still need it.

I really appreciate your assistance.

 

[Tedster]

read the upgrading ram guide in the guides forum.

 

[gord_ie]

Thanks Tedster, from reading your Guide I guess my issue is that I am mixing RAM brands, speed and size. A recipe for failure, I suppose. The trouble is the laptop was purchased in the UK and I now live in Oz, which makes buying the same brand difficult.

I appear to be getting 448mb plus 64mb for the video card giving me a total of 512mb from cards that should provide 768mb (mixing sizes aside). The manual (yes, I RTFM) states that I should be able to upgrade to 1gb.

Having said that it doesn't explain why when I just install the 512mb card I only get 192 (plus 64mb for the video card) hence my thought that I can only upgrade to a maximum of 512mb.