Hi All My husband's Dell Inspiron 5150 has been playing up for a while, reporting 256MB ram instead of 512MB even though both chips are seated in slots (2x256MB) - if he took them out and reseated them, it reported 512MB. This morning, it reported 256 and won't now report 512 no matter what - we've tried putting one chip in slot A and it reads 256MB, if we put the chip in slot B it reads 256MB, but if you put the two together it reads 256MB! We have tried this process with both chips and they both work properly - help! As a side note - SiSoft Sandra sees 2x128MB but I know that this is rarely accurate anyway!! Any help appreciated!!

Crucial.com reports this computer can support up to 2GB of DDR2700. If the RAM was properly identified previously one can assume the RAM was compatible. Did this memory originally come with the computer from Dell? Has any new hardware been added recently? If the sticks both work individually in either slot as 256MB then I would guess there may be a problem with the memory controllers. Why do you state that SANDRA is usually wrong?

Assuming there are four slots for the RAM place one in the slot closest to the processor, skip one and insert the second. So banks #0 and #2 now contain RAM. Bryan

Only TWO slots on that machine.

The ram came with the machine originally - haven't updated anything with the machine - it just seems to not see both lots of ram every now and then. My husband is the one who doesn't trust SANDRA - I haven't had that much experience with it! We've tried both sticks in our other Dell laptop and they work fine - it just seems like some kind of intermittent problem with the 5150 and I just wondered if anyone had a clue what could cause it!

From response #1: "I would guess there may be a problem with the memory controllers". Not much experience with Dell but I would suggest you update the drivers for the Memory Controllers.