Not recognizing all of the RAM

[Chris Campion]

I recently purchased and fitted 512 Mb of Memory in my
PC. When I look at the system tab on the control panel,
it telloe me that my system only has 128 Mb. Thge system
is an old Gateway Pentium II 350Mhz running Windows XP.
Can anyone suggest a method of allowing the PC to
recognize the rest of the RAM?

 

[David Jones]

What does the BIOS say at the very beginning of boot,
before XP loads?

 

[Don Soriano]

-----Original Message-----
What does the BIOS say at the very beginning of boot,
before XP loads?

.
Had similar problems with my PC when I added 512M on top

of an existing 512M. Found out that the cards were of
different brand. When I replaced it with one of the same
brand, the problem went away. This may not be the only
cause of this type problem. Sometimes the slots get dirty
and corroded on older PCs. Clean them up with alcohol and
lubricate with electronic contact lube.

Don Soriano

 

[§kullywag©-]

of an existing 512M. Found out that the cards were of
different brand. When I replaced it with one of the same
brand, the problem went away. This may not be the only
cause of this type problem. Sometimes the slots get dirty
and corroded on older PCs. Clean them up with alcohol and
lubricate with electronic contact lube.

Don Soriano

Having a Pentium II suggests an older motherboard.
Some older boards limit how much RAM you can place in a slot.
Many older boards limit the slots to 256MB.
Before buying RAM for an older machine always check the specs to see
what size DIMMs you can use. And make sure you get the proper type .
While PC-133 is backwards compatible with 66, 100......... you can't
use 66 in a 133 machine...


§kullywag©-

 

[Bob Harris]

You probably can not do it with that PC, or specifically
with that motherboard.

I had a Gateway Pentium II 450 Mhz, purchased in the Fall
of 1998. It was top of the line at that time. However,
it could only handle a maximum of 384 Meg of RAM. Your
machine sounds a bit older and/or a cheaper model, so I
expect that its RAM limit is lower.

My Gateway came with fairly detailed documentation, hidden
on the hard drive. It was pretty clear about the PC's
capabilities and limitations. It also covered how to
replace the battery and other such things. Look for
something similar on your hard drive or on one of the CDs
that came with the PC. OR, go to the Gateway website and
see whether they have a downloadable manual for your PC.