asus g50v-a1 harware robbery?

heya, sorry for posting here but i really dunno where i can post such a matter.
my name is andrei, im 23 and im from romania. During my stay this summer in the USA i purchased an asus G50V-a1. Some time in november one of my hard-drives got fried for some reason, so i decided this weekend to come to the asus representative (wich is in another town) to fix it.

The guy tells me he doesnt have a Western Digital hard disc on stock only hitachi so i agree wich that one as im in a hurry to get it fix because im leaving on sunday.After postponing me all day (brought in the laptop at 10am and got it back at 18.00) when i get it the guy tells me he had to install windows again on the new harddrive for some reason and i should format the old one. If im trying to boot from the old drive i get a blue screen and it wont work, only working windows is the one on the new hard drive. At home i noticed in divice manager that i got only 3 GB of RAM instead of 4.

Did this guy replace my hardware and thus reinstall windows on the new drive because the old windows had confilicts with a possible new hardware ? does this have a big probability or am i just paranoid ?
If u just add a new hard drive to the laptop, wouldnt the old windows just recognise it and work perfectly (btw i reinstalled windows 2 weeks ago) ? The representative keeps telling me to format the old drive, but im not shure given the circumstances that its a right call.

How can i check the freqency of the RAM ? as my RAM should be at 800Mhz.

any hint/suggestion would help me alot ! thx in advance

 

You probably still got 4gb ram, its just they installed vista 32bit without service pack, which shows the amount of ram accessable, which is about 3gb; if you upgrade to sp1, the system shows the ram addressable, as oppose to accessable. to take adventage of the extra gig you need vista 64 bit.

To check ram installed, you can try this app

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

I think by default the ram runs @ 667 mhz, which allows head room, as when you push down the turbo button, both the ram and fsb are overclocked.

 

download CPU-Z, and check the memory modules. There is a slight chance that you got Windows 32 bit installed and thus it only recognizes 3GB total.

you can also simply check in your BIOS when you turn on your PC and pressing F2 or DEL key (I forgot which one is! but one of those...)

 

When you bought the computer, it most likely had Windows Vista 64-bit installed. The guy you brought your computer to probably installed Vista 32-bit, which doesn't recognize more than 3GB of RAM. Right click on Computer in your Start Menu and click on Properties. There, you should see if it is 32 or 64-bit. It will actually say "32-bit Operating System" or "64-bit Operating System".

 

thx alot for the replies.

I more question , why cant i acces my old windows, when i brought in the laptop it work just fine, i checked my email 1 min before i handed it in. Shouldnt the old windows just recognise the new hard and work ? why did he haveto install a new OS on the new hard drive ?

 

Err, cos your old windows was installed on your old drive, a new drive is blank, and to uke your G50, installing OS onto the hDD is required

 

the asus g50v-a1 comes with 2 x250 gb hdds ... after my hard drive got fried i still kept using my laptop ,im an active WoW player ...until now, the drive with the OS wasnt affected but i did notice that the performances dropped ... thats why i asked why the old windows didnt see the new hdd