Either 128MB is going toward graphics or the RAM you bought is the wrong density. Read "step 6": http://support.gateway.com/s/tutori...

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At least one of your ram modules is incompatible with the mboard chipset. See response 5 in this for some info about ram compatibilty, and some places where you can find out what will work in your mboard for sure: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... Correction to that: Mushkin www.mushkin.com

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Cheers Jam and T&W, Where I installed the ram was a 2 slot compartment. I bought the RAM after I asked my brother inlaw to remove the oginal and read the specs, off the top of my head I think it was 133mhz single sided 256 ddr1 sodimm. I did buy it off ebay so maybe I was duped. This wouldn't surprise me. Either way graphics is consuming it or I bought a 128 stick that was somehow "labelled"? 256 or maybe, which I guess wouldn't be crazy, the mobo / bios won't recognise the full 256 installed in the 2nd slot and is limiting it to 128. *shrugs* I wish I could make this easier with the model # of the laptop I installed it on, thanks for your help guys. p.s. the utility I used was a simple diagnostics tool so it never actually tested the ram.

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Ghostman, It was factory with a single 256 stick, 2 slots and one empty which I added the 2nd. I think I swapped them also to see if windows would report the boost but alas,... no glory

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I'm guessing the problem is that the memory is "high density" and the motherboard is designed for low density RAM. In those situations the motherboard will recognize the RAM at exactly 1/2 of it's capacity. ..Which is what Jam alluded to previously. Since the system was reporting 256MB with a 256MB chip it wouldn't make sense for the video to all of a sudden start reserving 128MB. Either it was reserving it previously or it has it's own memory. Michael J

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Cool, thanks Michael, I'm not sure where I might have gone wrong with the ram selection. How do I check the density against the speed and size of the module I am buying? I know as a general rule of thumb it is ideal to match the specs as closely as possible as you can ( I thought I had done this), but I guess because the laptop is dated maybe this is where I went wrong. Thanks again everyone :)

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In almost all cases, all the ram slots support recognizing the same various sizes of modules. Some reasons for ram incompatibilty, some mentioned here, and other things are covered in that link I pointed you to in response 8, but I'll repeat some of that info.... There are several ways bioses can report the total amount of ram. Some bioses subtract ram shared with onboard video from the total amount of ram, some don't. - If it wasn't subtracting it before, that situation doesn't change when you add or remove ram. In addition to the ram density possibly being incompatible with the chipset - often it is reported as half of what it actually is but you can get other weird amounts reported, an incompatible module may be recognized fine if is the only one, but won't be, or another one won't be, when one or more other modules is (are) installed. The specs in mboard manuals or system specs or in ads on the web often don't have enough information for you to determine whether given ram modules will work in your mboard. Sometimes there are lists of various brands of compatible (known to work) modules and their ID strings for a mboard or system, but after a short time those lists are often outdated and you may not be able to find modules with those ID strings new. Looking up which ram will work in your mboard or system at memory manufacturers and major ram distributors that have the means of doing so is a virtually fail safe way of finding which ram will work in your mboard for sure. You don't necessarily have to get the ram directly from them - once you know the module ID strings you can get them from anyware that sells that module with that ID string.

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Thanks Tubes, Tricky business finding compatible hardware for aging systems it seems. I was kinda disappointed because I thought it would turn into a ferarri and it did, but without the wheels... lol Thanks again to everyone for their input, especially tubes (I also read the link). I will take all this into account next time I install more memory on a machine.

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Not sure if I missed it but what happens if you remove the original stick and replace it with the new one? If total ram shows as 128 then the stick is bad or you've got a density problem. If it shows 256 then maybe you've exceeded the max allowed. (That doesn't seem likely since it's already seeing a 256 stick but, after all, it is a compaq.)

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Hi Dave, I was passing through (these family members are a couple of hours away), and I didn't have enough time to swap out sticks and look at the system stats. The stick I added was placed in the top ram slot so I will remove the original and check how much ram is recognised that way, next time I'm out there. I do have the feeling that the ram I added wasn't fully compatible and this is the reason why only half is being recognised. When I remove the original ram completely and put the replacement in its slot I should expect to see only 128 installed? and if this is the case I am looking at ram compatibilty?

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Bad ram or incompatibility.

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Hello everyone, Thanks for all the help I recieved about this. I had a chance to take the ram out of the laptop and check the specs for each, one at a time. Each time windows showed with one 256mb of ram installed that they were 224mb by themselves, and with both sticks installed the total ram to be 384mb. As everyone was alluding to or basically saying outright, there was a ram incompatibilty problem. I will certainly take care next time to check this before doing a memory upgrade. Thankyou again everyone I have learnt a valuable (and thankfully not too costly) lesson.

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If each stick by itself showed 224 I'd suspect that 32 meg were going to video memory and the sticks are OK. Does it show 224 regardless of which slot you use? Maybe one slot has a max of 256 and the other 128. Or, I remember some older bios' had a problem with ram above 384. You might check the compaq support page for that model for a rampaq update--compaq's term for a bios upgrade. But if one slot can only see 128 then instead of 384 meg total (with 2 sticks) you'd expect it to show 352 due to 32 going to video. I don't know what's up with that but, after all, it is a compaq. . .

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"If each stick by itself showed 224 I'd suspect that 32 meg were going to video memory and the sticks are OK." The modules are not necessarily OK. Each module can work fine by itself but they may not be recognized properly when more than module is installed, if any installed are not 100% compatible. I've seen that before myself - often when two are installed the total memory count isn't what it should be, even considering ram shared with the video, etc., or the ram may not work right at all. e.g. I have two 256mb PC133 modules that work fine by themselves in a A7V133, but produce major ram errors when both are installed - one is confirmed compatible on the Kingston site, the other is Kingston too but has an oddball ID string not found on their site. Both have 8 chips, but I have no info about what the memory organization on the second module is. Cleaning their contacts, re-seating them does not help. Either of the modules works fine with a PC133 128mb module I have in any of the three slots. The mboard supports up to 512mb in each slot. It's pretty rare for slots to have different max capacities, but sometimes it makes a difference whether they are double or single sided and/or which slot those modules are in.

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Yeah, it doesn't make sense the slot capacities would be different. It was just a long shot. I did notice the occasional problem with old P-II and equivalent class motherboards where ram above 384 would cause problems. As I recall, although the ram was seen OK by 98, more than 384 gave a yellow exclaimation in device manager. Clicking on it for an explaination would tell you it was a problem with the bios. Any ram less than 384 would be fine. I posted the problem a few years ago but couldn't locate the thread. But anyway, it seemed to be a bios (and not OS) problem that started at 384 of ram. If it turns out the two sticks are good, that would be my best guess as to why they're not seen properly when both are used.

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