How can I find out if I installed RAM correctly?

Question

I have an HP Mediacenter PC which was running with 1 gb of RAM, I decided to upgrade and bought two 1gb cards, when I opened the computer, I found out that I had 4 slots with 2 available, the previous memory was installed in 2 separate slots with 512mb each, so all I did was install the two 1gb cards into the availabele slots, which were one next to each 512 card (like this: 1gb 512mb 1gb 512mb. Now when I check the properties in myPC, it says that I have 1.5gb of RAM when I should have 3gb right? So I don't know if I installed the cards correctly or if that's all I get from this combination. The computer manual says it supports up to 4 gb.

Answer 1

Well to check if your RAM is properly installed you should do exactly what you did, but in addition there maybe a couple of reasons why you're just getting 1.5 GB os RAM, sometimes the system shares some physical memory of urs which is not shown in the properties. But in this case it can
't be as none shares half of the RAM provided! Another reason maybe that your other two slots aren't working the way they should, because you're able to start your PC that means some RAM is available. Might be that the first two slots of your motherboard are providing acess, try changing the order to 1GB : 1GB : 512 MB : 512 MB.. this may help, otherwise make your slots check by your vendor.

Answer 2

First make sure that the ram is properly fitted in the slot. If it is, try taking out the old ram and keep in the new ram and see if your computer reads the physical memory then. If it does, then it's a good chance that the two memory modules (old and new) are not compatible. Check your motherboard documentation to see what type of memory it uses.

Answer 3

You may well have 3GB, but my pc from dell was meant to have 512mb (and thats what it says on the stick of ram) but windows says I have 450mb. if it changed at all then it probably worked fine.