What i have seen; is not the memory defect; but people have improperly installed them; one mistake is that they often touch these contacts pins with their bare hand. Long story short; just use some industrial standard cleaner; and reinstall the memory sticks back into slot; will often solve these problem. If you in PC business long enough; you see the opportunities every time when they have brought their computer in your store. Just like any car shop; i guarantee they can point out some flaws out of your car.
I have a somewhat related question, please indulge. I just noticed my RAM is not showing the full 1 gig it is showing 894? What could cause this? I had MOBO recently replaced by a good Dell tech. I ask because if I call Dell they will spend 60 minutes on the phone removing RAM before they will answer anything.
Most likely integrated graphics using up the system memory. Try to have it turned off if you have a vid card.
Depend your computer system; Integrated VGA (integrated video on motherboard) has often shared with the main memory; which cause the main memory count less than it appears. Example; 1024MB - 128MB (shared for video) = 896MB You can change this setting through BIOS setup process.
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