I am a tech, I see alot of customer computers daily, and yet again I have another one that has only 638k of total conventional memory. Im sure you all know all IBM compatable systems should have 640k total conventional memory. Most of the time a virus will cause a system to show up at 636 or 638k total memory, because they hide in that top few kilobytes of memory. In my cases no viruses could be present, the system even reports 638k with no hard drive attatched and booting off a clean write protected floppy disk. I have had this problem multiple times with many systems, can anyone recommend a solution for me or a possible reason the other 2k is missing. Please any reasonable info will be appreciated. Thanks.

It's only reporting 638 during post or the OS is reporting 638 total, as in the MEM command? I assume you've tried swapping the memory. I've seen older systems report less that 640 on post. I assumed it was because that memory was being cached or reserved for something and wasn't being reported. It could also be a flaw in the bios similar to the way the cpu speed is sometimes reported wrong in the post process. I remember some old MBs that would show 125 mhz for a 133 cpu.

638k is very good. Check the autoexec/config.sys for items. Some can be remarked LH load high. There is nothing to worry about 638K

DAVEINCAPS: I hear what your saying, but it is reported by the OS, mem in particular, but other memory utilities such as chkdsk will also report the same missing memory. vtech: thanks for trying, but you misunderstand... you are thinking of free memory not total memory. All systems should have 640k total memory not free memory. Programs loading in config.sys & autoexec.bat will lowwer your free memory amount, but can't effect your total memory. Keep em comming guys... :) and thanks.

In some older systems you could change the conventional memory in cmos down to 512. Of course that's not what's wrong since 638 wasn't an option. But I have to think it's in cmos somewhere. Did you try loading bios defaults or changing any memory options?