1gb of ram.. detected as 256mb in windows

[MikeReiner]

2x512 DDR266 ram instaledl, bios picks it up as 1024mb in dual channel. CPU-Z does the same. Windows on the other hand, sees it (and uses it) as 256mb of ram... terribly slow.

I need some help here
it's a dell dimension 4600
2.66p4 cpu
geforcefx 5200

 

[joxley1990]

Uumm... wierd..

You tried the RAM in a different computer? Have you tried just using one stick at a time.. have you tried resetting it, have you tried swapping slots.. etc etc..

 

[MikeReiner]

Uumm... wierd..

You tried the RAM in a different computer? Have you tried just using one stick at a time.. have you tried resetting it, have you tried swapping slots.. etc etc..

Heres how it went

First, we bought a 1gb stick to replace both of them, and it came out as 256.. so we took the 2 512s from another PC and put the 1gb in that other computer.. the 1gb showed up as a full 1gb no problem.. but the 2 512s are doing the same thing in this computer as the 1gb stick was..

All kingston btw.
the two 512s are DDR266
and the 1gb is DDR333

..I haven't tried using just one stick.. but at this point, I don't see that making a difference. All the sticks of ram have no problems whatsoever... it seems to be something wrong with windows.. since the bios picks it up just fine.. hell even CPU-Z WITHIN windows picks it up..

 

[lhuser]

Try a memtest on it. If it passes, you'll need to reinstall Windows.

 

[MikeReiner]

Try a memtest on it. If it passes, you'll need to reinstall Windows.

I just now tried using a live cd of ubuntu, even THAT only got 256 megs of ram picked up.. so now I know this isn't a problem with the OS..
I updated the bios to the latest version, yet it still didn't work... I dunno what to do for this damn thing.

 

[lhuser]

Change your RAM. I think the problem lies there.

 

[MikeReiner]

Change your RAM. I think the problem lies there.

Nope. That ram runs perfectly fine in other computers.
I have determined that the problem lies with the motherboard. I tried running Ubuntu on a live cd, and that gave the same amount of ram.. 256. I updated the bios, no different. The same ram works without error in another computer...

Dell sucks. Gonna replace the case and motherboard. Use the RAM, CPU, GPU, HDD, PSU and optical drives with the new case and motherboard. Should be ok.

FYI this is a computer for a friend, all he wants out of it is decent performance in WoW, and having 256 megs of ram just doesn't cut it. My sister has a computer of nearly identical hardware (ram and motherboard being the differences) and it runs WoW fine.