Login into Crucial and scan buy the ram recommend and they delivered today

My PX has gone from 1.8Ghz and 2GB ram to a confusing 3.6GHz and 2.87 Ram

crucial are saying it's because of my windows OS not reading it correctly

Am I been duped or is my PC not running right with this ram installed Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

adding more RAM wont change the CPU clock speed from 1.8 to 3.6.
And as for it showing only 2.87GB RAM that is strange.
Windows in its 32bit incarnations will never see more than 4gb, and even with 4gb installed
windows will only report 3.4-3.7gb typically ( the missing memory is still there, but cannot be addressed
by Windows, as the address space require is being used to access the BUS)


remove all the RAM, and try it in different slots, some pc's want adjacent pairs to match in the slots, and some prefer
that every other slot has a matching pair. 

so, I guess the questions are

1. are you running a 32 or 64 bit version of Windows
2. How much additional RAM did u order 

Win XP home edition 2003 SP3

I think it's 32 bit not sure were to look for that

Crucial are supposed to be sending a something or other out to possiblely correct it? But their first advice was upgrade windows  Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

yep, most probably 32 bit, so 3.5 is probably the best you will ever see in windows

If your machine supports Windows 8, then upgrade, Windows 8 only requires 2gb of RAM, and is by far
the least memory demanding product of any of their modern operating systems
Then add a SSD drive.

Your performance will go through the room as for as speed / £££ goes

If you cannot go to Windows 8, then funds permitting still add a SSD - massive improvement 

npinks wrote:

Win XP home edition 2003 SP3

Is that the Yorkshireman in you, keep it going for as long as possible.

Joking aside, Windows 8 is very very good, persevere with it as at first it will infuriate you, get over the first few days and habits of XP and you will love it.

As for the SSD, yes get one, they are unbelievably quick compared to a HDD.

don't see the point in upgrading OS each year at the office, upgrade too quickly the systems we run haven't kept up and causes issues

Sounds like its running as fast as its going too, unless i do upgrade the system Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

There is that, if it aint broke, Win XP is no longer supported though and you need to be careful that any software that you are running, if that is upgraded then you may be left with a right mess as there will be no upgraded drivers from Microsoft. This will happen at the most inopportune moment so keep an upgrade in mind for a quiet day

new software we are installing (hence my ram issue) word with XP till they stopped supporting it, still does, but might upgrade to Win7/8 if needs be Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

the newer DELL PC with Win7 on according to the crucial scanner could have upto 16GB of ram, had 2gb so thought I would add another 2GB to make 4gb, beep at start up and informed me of a memory change had been detected, went to config, showed 4gb been installed and exited, loaded up and show 3.21gb accessible

i'm guessing that correct from the earlier post Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

Yes, that will be correct, the video system can also use the memory too and this will also give rise to it reporting less than installed.

I started in the Computer industry in 1973 and remember a course about a new mainframe (cost millions of £s) and the phrase "it's got 32 bit addressing so will be able to address about 4 Gbytes which is more than anyone will ever need" Wow.

The first system I worked on had 8Mb of RAM and had over 100 simultaneous users. Nowadays the high powered hardware is constipated by millions of lines of inefficient code.