Laptop Memory Issue

I have a Dell Inspiron 5100, 512 MB, 2.4GHz laptop.

I bought this laptop online awhile back, but recently it has been acting up. A week or so ago, I opened up the back and took a look at the memory. There were two sticks: one 512, one 256. However, one of the slots is obviously not picking up that there is anything there. I tried switching them around, but only one of the slots will recognize there is anything there. Help?

Also, my computer has recently been very... almost laggy of sorts. It randomly lags whenever it is doing even the smallest tasks. The computer isn't 100% crap, so I don't think it should be doing that. I even reinstalled before to fix that problem, but it continues to do so. Along with the lag, it freezes a lot as well. Even when I leave it idle with nothing running, it will freeze after awhile.

Thanks,
Josh

 

It sounds like you have a bad stick of RAM. Try removing one stick and see if that helps, if not try reinstalling that one and removing the other one. You said it shows 512 of RAM but it has installed a 512 and 256 so the 256 is probably not working or one side of the 512 is not working.

 

What do you mean by "reinstalling that one"? I'm pretty sure it's the side with the 256 that's not working, not the actual stick. I tried switching them and it booted showing I had 256 instead of 512 after the switch, so that's for sure. Also the computer seemed to freeze very frequently when I booted it with one stick in, sometimes it wouldn't even boot up.

 

What do you mean by "reinstalling that one"? I'm pretty sure it's the side with the 256 that's not working, not the actual stick. I tried switching them and it booted showing I had 256 instead of 512 after the switch, so that's for sure. Also the computer seemed to freeze very frequently when I booted it with one stick in, sometimes it wouldn't even boot up.

 

I mean you should try them one at a time and check the total amount of RAM reported by windows and see if your stability improves.

You may have a bad stick or you may have 2 sticks that are not going to work well together. If the speed of the RAM modules are different it will almost always cause instability in a computer.

 

I'm interpreting this as you saying the memory slot in the laptop's motherboard is bad and the computer is unstable even using only one memory card in the slot that is still seems to be working. Maybe reinstalling the chipset drivers might help, but if the slot or board is bad... I found this on the Dell site for Intel chipset drivers with installation instructions. I'm pretty sure Dell uses only intel chipsets but you should doublecheck to make sure before you do anything.