System says 512 ram, task manager displays as 1gb?

Question

i have a dell dimension 3000 pc. 4-5 years old. one day out of nowhere, i found that my system says it only has 512 ram. i was like psh, i have 1 gb. so i ran a test on memoryx.net, it says i have two 256 sticks.. what the heck, the only upgrade on my pc is a 256mb ati radeon 9250.. so please tell me what's wrong?

Answer 1

Task manager says 1GB under "total physical memory"?  512MB is much more realistic for a 4-5 year old machine.