My motherboard has two memory slots and I have 512 MB of DDR RAM in one of the slots. I bought another DDR RAM of the same size and thought I could put it in the second slot to have a total of 1 GB memory, however, when I check System Information under System Tools folder, the Installed Physical Memory (RAM) still shows 512 MB. How come the new RAM is not added?
It is not added because it is likely that your system is not detecting the additional memory. Turn off your computer and open it up. Remove the NEW RAM. The OLD RAM that you have, remove it and put it in the other RAM slot.
Turn your computer and see if it is detected. If it not detected, then that means you may have a bad slot and may need to have your motherboard replaced. If it is detected, then it is possible that the NEW RAM that you have is bad and you need to have it replaced.
An additional ram might not be recognized by your system because you could have the memory installed wrong. Check it if you have seated it correctly.
Remove it and reseat it again. Also, maybe you bought a wrong type of memory. Remember that each type of memory is totally different and incompatible with the other memory because they work completely differently.
Any system will only take one memory type but if you are so sure that you have the right type of memory, you are probably running into compatibility issues between the modules when adding a module to an existing system.
Hello Loucarl,
You should also check to find out what maximum memory your system can hold. May be your system can hold up to a maximum of 512 MB, meaning 256 MB in each of the slots.
Otherwise, I will advice that you remove the memory chip and blow off any dust that might have entered your system (motherboard) hence blocking the contacts between the memory chip and the memory card slot.
Or the memory chip's sensitive surface could have tampered with due to seamlessly touching it or dropping it on the ground, a case that could mean the memory chip will not function at all.
Hope this helps.
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Regards,
Lee Hung.
If you are installing a new memory module on your computer, make sure to do it with the computer turned off. If you don’t and you install the new memory module on the memory slot while the computer is running, you just damaged the new memory module. I’m not sure if it’ll still work properly after that.
To install a new memory module properly, shut down your computer and unplug it from the power. Next, open the CPU case then insert the new memory module on an available memory slot. When buying or installing new memory modules, buy or install only memory modules of the same type. If your memory slot or your existing memory module is DDR1, buy or install only DDR1 memory module.
A different memory module will not fit the memory slot because of the notch. Try also reseating all memory modules.
