hi,

a friend of mine asked to check his computer for him and i noticed that windows displayed his ram size as being only 192MB (under Control Panel > System >General tab). I thought this was odd because he only has 1 memory card installed and this is not a standard size. I used a program called Aida32 and it said the memory card in the slot was 256MB (Nanya brand).

Does anyone know why its not recognising it all? Is it a problem with his motherboard, or is there a problem with the memory card itself?

many thanks.

Does this motherboard have onboard graphics by any chance? If so its probably the system has taken 64mb of it for the gfx....192+64=256

Cheers
Tongy

^^^ yep.

thanks for your replies guys, it probably does have onboard, im goin over to check it again later.

Also, he wants to add more ram to his system, is it a bad idea to add another single 512mb stick. This would mean both sticks were not the same size, ive heard some computers dont like this. Or should i just get another 256mb to avoid any possible complications, hes only got 2 slots in total, e.g (1 free).

thanks again.

Very difficult to say, some just dont like mixed ram but most work perfectly well. I would advise that 512MB is probably too small for anything taxing on WinXP though, better to get the 512 and remove the 256 if needbe. Try swapping them too so the 512 occupies the first slot if it doesnt like it immediately. Can always buy a second 512 later

While you are at it check if the mobo has an AGP or other suitable graphics slot. Using a seperate graphics card, switching off the on board graphics and reassigning the memory back to the CPU can increase performance too.

in the meantime if he isnt using any modern games then try cutting the graphics memory in the bios to 32mb.

doesnt really matter, just dont set it to run in dual channel if you have differing sizes.

yeah you can have mismatched sticks on most boards with no probs whatsoever.  Problems only appear if you start trying to use dual channel settings (~10% faster memory) with odd sticks and you wont be doing that.

Different memory sticks should be no problem at all.

thanks everyone for your replies, much appreciated. Ill ask him about getting a 512mb stick instead and see what he says.

thanks again,

dawlton.