Two 128mb Ram chips = 128 mb?

[JiveTalkinRobot]

Hey guys,

I am new to this forum and sorry if this has been discussed.
I have an older Dell Laptop with 2 slots for memory.
I have two 128 meg chips installed. When I first turn on the computer and run windows it will say (under task manager) that I have 256 mb ram (total memory: 260,000) then about after an hour or more...it drops off and says 128 (total memroy: 130,548).
Is this something that is supposed to happen or is one chip/slot failing?

Thanks in advance.

 

[CrucialLabs]

Are you looking at the usage? The best way to tell if there is a problem is to bring up the system properties and on the general tab towards the bottom will tell you how much memory you have. If this changes then you have a bigger problem like the slot or the memory module itself. If the memory size does not change on the general tab but the size changes on the Task Manager then it is related to usage

Hope this helps.

 

[becroydon]

if you are looking at the part that says kernal memory total, then, there must be something wrong with that RAM

 

[Apokalipse]

press control+alt+delete if you have Windows 2000, XP or 2003 and it should have "Commit Charge: x/y"
x=RAM used
y=total RAM

just to confirm how much it detects

*edit* BTW the RAM sizes will be in kilobytes so just divide by about 1000 (it's really 1024) and that's the amount in MB