Hello,
I just registered today and searched around a bit, but I didn't see my question.

My computer Gateway PC (Celeron 2.0 Ghz), Windows XP, SP2... came with 256MB RAM. I installed 1024mb RAM stick, in slot A and moved the 256MB stick to slot B. I had 1280 MB of RAM in "My Computer" SYSTEM Info.

Everything was fine for several years then, last week I noticed the pictures from my camera were downloading slower then usual, and when I checked my RAM is was only 640MB. HALF of what it had for the several years that I had 1280MB.

Any Ideas ??!!

Thanks, captbruce

Failing motherboard MAYBE. Must be PRETTY old if it came with a 2 GHZ Celery and 256 MB, like 2002 or 2001. 7 years is forever in a PC's life. What does it show in the power-on memory test?


http://www.memtest.org/
Download that and use something like http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn the iso to a cd, and then restart with the cd in the drive, and if it doesnt boot into the cd, then set it to do that in the bios. Run it for around 2hr and tell us if it found any errors Remove and re-seat both RAM chips...
Do some housekeeping while your in there...

As always when working inside the case remove all power sources and take static precautions.....Quote from: captbruce on July 24, 2009, 01:27:48 PM

I installed 1024mb RAM stick, in slot A and moved the 256MB stick to slot B. I had 1280 MB of RAM in "My Computer" system Info.


Any Ideas ??!!

Thanks, captbruce

I would think the module mismatch would have possibly caused a problem in the first place.

Everything was fine for several years