System properties reports wrong RAM size

[rabcarl]

Okay, well I have a laptop, and if you read one of my earlier threads you would know that my brother's friends managed to utterly destroy it within the first couple weeks I had it (cracked lcd, was not pretty ) but anyways the customer support was actually pretty good and got it back to me quickly and with no questions asked (with a higher res screen, at least some consolation for my troubles)

But anyways, now that I've got it back I casually open the system properties and notice that there is only two gigs of RAM when I know for a fact that there were four from the factory. Any help on this? As I said the laptop did have a good drop so could this be the problem?

Maybe if there were another way to check if the RAM is disabled/not functioning?

I'm really at my wit's end with this thing, because also occasionally it freezes up and the screen goes bonkers (my dad says that happens to his from time to time as well, which has never been dropped or anything)

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Or you got back a copy of a your disk image on a brand new laptop with different specs?

Things you can do:
(a) Use a memtest program and boot that (run it outside of Windows or any other OS). This should report among other things how much RAM you actually have (and whether any of it is damaged/inaccessible). [Note that if a large-ish range of RAM comes out damaged/inaccessible it may simply be reserved by the BIOS for itself and not damaged at all: your memtest may simply not recognize this.] Google one. If the RAM is damaged, complain at customer support or buy new sticks (not very useful if you are unable to install the sticks yourself though).
(b) Open the case and count the sticks. Might void the warranty if any still applies. Only very useful if you knew how many sticks were/should be inside in the first place (but you may be able to find out from where you bought it). If the sticks don't add up, buy more RAM and install it (you should be able to install them if you could open the machine and count the old sticks in the first place) or get customer support to do it for you.
(c) Consider Windows to be unreliable and reinstall Windows. I doubt the problem would go away, but then again I'd have doubted more things about Windows.
(d) Consider Windows to be unreliable but reinstalling Windows too much of a hassle: download a LiveCD/LiveDVD/LiveUSB image of some other OS, burn it to a disc and reboot your PC with the disc inside (note that you will want to burn at the slowest speed possible [less chance of error] and also let your burning program verify the written data).
When you have booted into your live OS, find out your hardware specs according to that OS and see if it differs from what Windows reports. If anything differs you will still want to do (c).
(e) Might work; but it relies on the ability of a damaged OS to repair itself: make a recovery disc of your Windows then use the recovery disc to repair/restore Windows to factory defaults.

Note that (c) is bound to and (e) might result in data loss.

[Husar]

Things you can do:
(a) Use a memtest program and boot that (run it outside of Windows or any other OS). This should report among other things how much RAM you actually have (and whether any of it is damaged/inaccessible).

I just happened to run memtest 86+ lately and it showed my 4GB DDR2 800MHz as DDR1 500MHz so not sure about that.

If there are a whole 2GB missing first thing I'd do is look for some hatch underneath where the RAM can be replaced and see whether they didn't take some of it out.
If that's not possible for any reason (no hatch, lack of knowledge, fear for loss of guarantee) I'd have a look at the BIOS startup (usually shows amount of available RAM, if one can enable advanced startup test it should count/test through all of it), then there are those system diagnostics tools like CPU-Z which shows you what stick you have in which slot etc. Though I guess it gets that from the BIOS, so not sure about the reliability of that.

If you're in doubt, go back to the store and tell them about your missing 2GB and that you'd like them back.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Another possibility: 32 bit Windows versions will not recognize your 4 gigs. Use XP 64 bit edition if that's the case.
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[pevergreen]

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Another possibility: 32 bit Windows versions will not recognize your 4 gigs. Use XP 64 bit edition if that's the case.
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Mine shows 3.5gig of RAM.

[edyzmedieval]

Mine shows 3.5gig of RAM.

Mine shows 3.2GB of RAM.
Vista 64-bit with 4GB.

[Tellos Athenaios]

You do know that the 4GB limit goes for the total of all memory mapped devices (most important of which would be the graphics card) ?

@Husar: the point is/was not that memtest86+ is always right. In particular how it classifies hardware may very well be completely off. However that doesn't matter too much for the problem at hand: first of all no program does direct memory access, there is always a hardware controller of sorts between <code> and <RAM>: that is the device responsible for ensuring that the RAM/CPU combination works properly provided both individual components work properly. Second of all the real problem is that OP wants to know whether or not the problem with RAM detection lies with (a) dud sticks; (b) missing sticks; or (c) dud software.