A20P - AVAILABLE RAM IN BIOS DOES NOT MATCH INSTALLED MEMORY

[JoeyC]

Greetings to the most honored members of this forum. I am in need of some technical support.

FYI, I have searched the IBM/Lenovo website as well as googling my little heart out. I have no where else to turn and I am a poor but very humble student.

I have an older thinkpad, A20p which started exhibiting some strange memory behavior one week ago. Crucial replaced both memory modules, I have (2) NEW 256mb Crucial memory modules, at no charge a few days ago (they said they have a lifetime warranty). So I know the memory modules are good.

The problem in a nutshell: With 512mb installed the BIOS reports 128mb. With (1) 256mb memory module (installing either one in either socket exhibits the same behavior) the BIOS correctly reports 256mb. I am currently running on 256mb but miss the extra memory as I'm running XP. I have tried to reset the CMOS by removing the battery several times to no avail.

I am totally perplexed by this problem. Can anyone please offer any support, guidance or advice.

As an added note: I installed the 512mb when it came in from Crucial and setting my BIOS for diagnostic mode it correctly reported the 512mb. But this afternoon after powering up the initial problem (only recognizing 128mb) reoccurred.

I am running the latest BIOS available from IBM, sorry, I mean Lenovo.

Update: I plugged in the extra 256mb card in this moring and the BIOS recognized it without any problem. WinXP also reports 512mb. I ran PC-Doctor full tests and full memory tests. It found no problems. I know that it's a matter of time before the problem reoccurs. So perhaps the device failing may be symptomatic to heat.

Any thoughts?

Respectfully,

JC

[slagmi]

Maybe related to density-
What does the RAM look like physically?
Single sided with 2 chips on one side and none on the other?
Or something else(describe)?

[JoeyC]

Thank you for replying. The Memory Modules are new, recently replaced by Crucial, however, they have chips on both sides.