Well. I just now noticed that my computer only reads half of my RAM (says that my computer only has 256MB, even though it has 512MB.)

Now, I don't know if it's just a visual error, because I can still play counter strike, conquer online, city of heroes, starwars galaxies, etc. and I don't notice any difference in loading and precaching times.

But, on bootup, during the POST screen, it says that I have 266144(or similar)KB of memory, when I should have 512. Even in Windows task manager it says I have 633436K commit charge when it usually use to say that i had around 12k.

Is this normal? has my memory stick shorted out? please, help!

AMD XP 3200
Abit NF7-S
6800GT 256MB
512MB Corsair XMS PC3200 DDR400

Using on board lan/audio, although I do have an SMC ethernet card in there.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

if both your RAM modules have a speed mismatch this would cause that problem or maybe the RAM module isn't insterted properly, re-insert it into a different slot.

Hey bud, thanks for the quick reply. It's 1:30 in the morning now so I'll be sure to do what you said first thing tomorrow morning.

I think that just may be the problem, because it looks like my dad may have inserted the memory into a different slot when replacing my HDD.

Thx again for the help.

download this program the go to the about tab click on html report and post the results back here

heya. i replugged the memory and it seems to be working fine now. ty for the help you guys, i think i got it.

here is the CPUZ report if you still want to look it over -- im not a very computer savy person so maybe something is still wrong with my system? if you could check it over and tell me, i'd appreciate it.

CPU-Z Report
CPU-Z version 1.29.

CPU(s)
Number of CPUs 1
Name AMD Athlon XP
Code Name Barton
Specification AMD Athlon™ XP 3200+
Family / Model / Stepping 6 A 0
Extended Family / Model 7 A
Package Socket A
Technology 0.13 µ
Supported Instructions Sets MMX, Extended MMX, 3DNow!, Extended 3DNow!, SSE
CPU Clock Speed 2194.3 MHz
Clock multiplier x 11.0
Front Side Bus Frequency 199.5 MHz
Bus Speed 399.0 MHz
L1 Data Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Instruction Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Cache 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Speed 2194.3 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 64 bits

Mainboard and chipset
Motherboard manufacturer http://www.abit.com.tw/
Motherboard model NF7-S/NF7 (nVidia-nForce2), 2.X
BIOS vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS revision 6.00 PG
BIOS release date 10/09/2003
Chipset nVidia nForce2 Ultra 400 rev. C1
Southbridge nVidia nForce2 MCP rev. A4
Sensor chip Winbond W83627HF
Graphic Interface AGP
AGP Status enabled, rev. 3.0
AGP Data Transfer Rate 8x
AGP Max Rate 8x
AGP Side Band Addressing supported, not enabled
AGP Aperture Size 64 MBytes

Memory
DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
DRAM Size 512 MBytes
DRAM Frequency 199.5 MHz
FSB:DRAM 1:1
CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks
RAS# to CAS# 3 clocks
RAS# Precharge 3 clocks
Cycle Time (TRAS) 8 clocks
# of memory modules 1
Module 0 Corsair DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 512 MBytes

Software
Windows version Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
DirectX version 9.0c