Question on Notebooks:

I bought my Acer Aspire 4710G in Macau in September 2007. It originally had 1GB or RAM, as is shown on the chassis sticker. The shop I bought it from gave me a free 1GB RAM upgrade. After adding the DIMM, they showed me in the system information that the value had changed to 2GB.

Recently, I noticed my PC was getting slower. When I checked the system information, it's now 1GB. Are there ways these shop owners are able to show that a computer has 2GB RAM when in fact it's just 1GB?

Submitted by Reader

Answer:

It is unlikely that the salesman managed to cheat the system into believing it has 2GB RAM when only 1GB was installed. I would say it's more likely someone has taken the extra stick of memory out of your machine. Especially since you mentioned the slowdowns you experienced were recent.

The only way to be sure is to unscrew the panel and see if the chips are all present and accounted for. Also, one RAM stick could have popped out of the socket so make sure all of them are seated firmly in place.