WTF??? 2GB + 2GB = 3GB? What's going on with my RAM?

[B4N M3]

Help! Up until today I've been running 2.5 GB of RAM (2GB + 512MB) in my laptop (Toshiba Satellite 100 -036), but lately I've been doing a lot of photoshopping while listening to music and surfing the web and it's been a little choppy, so I went out and bought another 2GB stick.

I put it in, restarted my computer, it recognized the new hardware, gave my computer a higher Windows rating and all, but when I check, it says I only have 3 GB of RAM. What gives?

As far as I knew 32-bit Vista (which is my OS) was capable of recognizing up to 3.5 GB of RAM...is my new RAM simply mis-labelled? (it's a Cruical one from BestBuy).

Thanks.

EDIT: well, according to some of the stuff I've read it's because I don't have SP1...is that true?

[TOPEC]

y not update to SP1 and see? plus u should always be the most update to date with any service pack releases.

[urrh]

if you really want to see if its miss labeled just take out your original ram and check with just your new stick in

[B4N M3]

I'm downloading it right now (didn't want to start it yesterday 'cuz I wanted to go to sleep lol)

urrrh: while that's an easy way to test it, I don't like monkeying around too much with the computer and if I don't have to take out/put RAM back in if I don't have to, I'd rather not. The screw for the door is already a little stripped haha.

I'll let you guys know if SP1 solves my problem...

[akira112]

SP1 will just TELL YOU that you have 4gigs of ram, but it won't be able to utilize it.

[hoking]

32bit OS's only recognizes up to a total of 4gig ram including your video. So if you have a 500mb video card ram, the rest of your system ram is basically un-utilized... I had this same problem too

[PsycHo_DraGoN69]

if you want to make use of your ram (or more) grab a 64 bit OS and you should be able to see and utilize all the ram

[B4N M3]

Thanks for the replies...I tried downloading SP1, but the bastard won't install...I hate Windows.

Even so, it's noticeably faster with the new RAM than it was before...I'm very happy