Why Does Only 1/2 of Installed RAM show?

[m3incorp]

Up until a couple of weeks ago, my RAM was showing up as 1512 Megabytes Installed Memory.

Slot 'A0' has 1GB
Slot 'A1' has 512MB

Now Belrac Advisor and windows shows:


736 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' has 512 MB
Slot 'A1' has 256 MB

I have removed all RAM modules and reinstalled one at a time. I have used brand new ones, the original ones, and RAM modules from my other computer. I have tried 1GB, 512MB, and 256MB sticks of quality RAM. They all show exactly 1/2 of what they should be showing.

The computer is my sons Compaq Presario 6420NX.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Nitestick]

it is really odd that that much memory would dissapear. try some other programs to check for instance cpu-z or everest. even right click on "my computer" and click properties. it could be a glitch in the software. the only time i've ever seen memory not be registered like this is when integrated graphics "shares" memory with system memory. have you made any changes to the hardware in your computer?

 

[smartech]

That happened to me while I bought a new 256 MB memory module, and it showed only 128, while video didn't used it for sure, it figured out to be BIOS problem, since my motherboard is pretty old, it couldn't recognize big memory chips (8x32MB). So what I did, I swapped the module for a one with 16 chips (16x16MB), then it worked fine.

But if you say that everything was fine with the same modules, it isn't the case. I suggest to check the BIOS for some memory related settings, memory addresses, or maybe anything about dual channel configuration is gone wrong.