Problem With Brother's Laptop

[StealthG]

Hello all,

For some reason my brothers sony laptop does not recognize the full 512MB of installed memory he had purchased the laptop with. It now only recognizes 256MB. He purchased the laptop around 2002, but he noticed that in the properties of the "my computer" it now only shows 256MB. maybe since a month ago its been like that. he says that when he goes into the bios it also shows 256MB instead of the 512. I tell him that it doesnt really matter what it shows as long as it performs like 512. But since you cant really tell the difference he keeps saying that it has slowed down. Im guessing that its a 512 stick of memory since he hasnt installed any ram. could it be some kind of virus or spyware thats causing this? or how could he possibly fix this?

[stupefiedgenius]

sometimes windows simply doesn't recognize hardware or in the case of RAM and hard drives their full capacity. i'm sure there are software methods but I'd say if you can CAREFULLY pop it open (read the manual that came with it) and see if there is indeed a stick of 512. i think my HP was advertized as having better specs than it actually does. also if its 2 sticks of 256 maybe one isn't in all the way and needs a nudge; I doubt it has to room to be out of a place in a notebook but it happens on desktops...

[Chappy]

Since its a full stick it's not recognizing, I would run a memory check program on this to make sure you don't have a bad stick.

Or you could just try pulling a stick out and try booting up each stick seperately to see if it fails to boot with one or the other stick.

MemTest86