Why did my RAM suddenly decrease?

LucasM

New member
Ok, so I have about 1 gig of RAM. I have 2x 256mb of PC2700 DDR RAM, and 1x 512mb of PC2700 DDR RAM. All together, that totals out to be around 1 gig.

So, I noticed all of a sudden that I lost some performance. It was quite noticeable. I right-clicked "my computer", hit "properties" and saw that I had only 256mb of RAM?? Nice..

So, I crack open my PC to investigate, because I recently added the 512 stick. I pop out each of the modules and re-seat them. Now, I am getting 712mb of RAM, still missing 256mb!

Now, I use process of elimination to find out what's giving me the problem. I have determined that it seems to be my 512mb stick is only giving me half of its advertised speed, 256mb. What could have caused this? I suppose it could've just failed, but I find that hard to believe... simply because it was working just great 5 minutes ago.. So, any ideas on things to check, bios settings... anything? I am stumped.
FURTHERMORE:

It seems that I have lost a DIMM slot. It makes no sense! I went to crucial.com and ran their scanner, and it told me that I had 256mb of RAM installed when in fact the stick is actually 512mb in size!

It also told me that I have 1 slot available, when I actually have 2!! What is going on?! I have tested these slots, and all of them seem to work..
 
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