[Darin1138]

Long story but here goes

Help me out guys,
Here the long store
My HP, running Windows XP came with 128 of Ram.
It worked great. Last week I started have big computer problem when both of my CD drives died on me. Then I started to get a lot of system errors, etc etc. I also notice that under My Computer, were it says Regisered by (My name) it now said By "Not you anymore!"
I got 512mb of Ram and thought, maybe that could help my CD come back. It did not. I re-installed my windows, put it back to factory settings. Under System I noticed I only had 608MB of ram(it said 640 the night before). Also with out a CD drive I had I could not get any of my add on programs to work. Low on money I had to remove the 512mb, take it back (thank you Staples!) and get a new CD drive. Now, my CD drive is working, yet my 128mb of Ram says under system that it is only 96mb of ram.
What have I done? I have changed slots but that didn't help. I took out the memory, checked it, looks find, put it in the other, now, un-used slot.
Still says I have 96. Seems the RAN problem all happened after I re-installed Windows XP.
Any help?

 

[johnwill]

Well, it's pretty clear you have a virus or worm of some type. The change of owner to that string isn't a good sign.

 

[Darin1138]

When I re-installed the OS (winXP) that seems to take care of the Worm/virus or whatever. However this memory thing is the only problem I have. It wasn't like this until I reinstalled

 

[Ghrrom]

Your RAM might have gone bad, or the worm could have messed about in the partition where windows keeps it's system files, there is a quick way to find out which is the case, see how much ram your BIOS says it has, also I would like to know if you've had a look into device manager to see if anything has faulted out.

Later

 

[Darin1138]

The BIOS shows 128 and it that screen I found that 32mb was used for Video, so I reset it to 16mb.
Is there anyway to set that lower or not at all? What do I need it for? I know before I use to get the total 128, or I thought I did. Looking over websites it seems the video board is mostly used for game play. I dont play games. Can it be set to 0 or lower some how?

 

[slam]

obviously your system comes with an embedded videocontroller which uses part of the main memory (128 - 32 = 96)
This is called shared memory...
Your BIOS allows you to lower this amount of memory to 16 M, which of cause is needed for video-handling... in no way this can be set to zero !

If you want to play games on this PC I would install an AGP video-controller and disable the embedded videocontroller (via BIOS)

Gr

 

[altamash]

did u format ur pc b4 installing windows xp ?..if you didnt the virus/worm could still be lurking around ur HD. As for ur memory..the above posters are rite abt shared memory..u could go as low as 4mb. Try 1, my first vid card was 1mb but only if others agree..but im positive abt 4mb.

 

[putasolutions]

If you have an AGP or PCI graphics card installed, I would disable the onboard graphics controller, which can normally be done in BIOS (or by means of jumper switch)

Then set the BIOS to recognise that the AGP or PCI controller as the primary graphics source