Problem with ram, please help!

[motz]

Hello group,
I recently built a new computer ideas and advice from your forums. The system, 1.4 ghz AMD, Epox 8K7a MB, 512 meg pc 2100 DDR ram[Crucial].The OS i am using is win98. I use this machine for gaming, and it has worked wonderful. I recently d/l 3D mark2001, and ran some test on my system. When i first went into it, i looked at the SYSinfo part. It says that i have 384 MB of physical memory, and that 259 meg of memory were unused. I intsalled two 256 MD dimms, i know that i have 512 meg of ram. Why does this show up other wise in windows, or in 3Dmark?
am at a loss of what to do, could anyone help??

Thanks again,
motz

[CrackedSKull]

I'm not sure about 3d marks, but under properties in my computer it says 512 right? If so I won't worry it becuase it's probably just a 3dmark problem. Also 259mb of unused memory is perfectly normal for that much ram. Unless you are using high end multi-media or high end games, you never use 256mb of ram. Still I wish I had 512 sometimes when I'm using 3d grafx programs.

If under windows and my computer it still says 384, try booting the system with one module, then the other and see if one is only been recongnized as 128. If so, you probably have defected memory. Also there could be something like dust in the socket or on the chips thats connecting the wrong things.

[motz]

ive even gone to program files/control panel, system it says 384.0 MB. I really do belive when i first put this toghether that it said 512 under system. How does this OS come up with this fiqure of 384?