RAM upgrade

[demon angel]

Not yet... chickened out after skimming thru this: http://www.wikihow.com/Update-Your-Computer's-BIOS

I will tomorrow morning when my head's clear... blame it on the whiskey.

LOL HA HA HA.

That article makes it to so scary and daunting and if you follow the instructions of the bios update its pretty straight forward.
Good luck soldier!
*Salutes and shows the linkS*
http://ee.giga-byte.com/products/mb/bios/ga-945gcmx-s2_66.html (bios files)

http://ee.giga-byte.com/products/mb/utility/ga-945gcmx-s2_66.html(app called @bios, a desktop app that allows you to update the bios NB!)

 

[Messugga]

Thanks Archer. That's where I checked before I even started this thread. What confused me is what the guys said about my motherboard supporting a max of 2Gig. So I wondered why XP was reporting 2.5Gig while the max supported is 2Gig.
This made me think perhaps XP is reporting "RAM installed" NOT necessarily what the OS is actually "using." I hope this makes sense...
Anyway, I am thinking of getting another 2Gig. My thinking is: if the board is already supporting 2.5Gig though some indications are 2Gig is max... Surely replacing 512MB with 2Gig won't hurt?

For the record, the RAM shown there is what Windows has access to. If it can't access it, it doesn't show it. Some motherboards are good for 3GB of RAM as a maximum (though it's fairly uncommon in my experience) while many are limited to 4GB. The fact that your system picks up the 2.5GB hints at the fact that it'll handle 4GB as well. I'd put money on it.

So, although an updated BIOS is good practice, if you're not comfortable doing it, just get the RAM and stick it in the system. If it doesn't work, then do the BIOS update.