RAM seems to be damaged and I would like to know how this can be fixed

[Joshua-1999]

Hi there, I have recently noticed that the running speed of this PC that has been well looked after is extremely slow and what should be 8GB of ram is running at 8192MB RAM. I try and run the Short Drive Self-Test and it just cancels itself at the end. is there anyway this can be solved. I don't have any apps open or anything so I cannot understand why? Please help

[RickMtl]

You need to give us more (better) info.

8G is RAM (memory), a G/gig is 1024, (2 to the power of 10) so 8G -> 8192 is correct.

If ram fails, you would here different BEEPS at power on, plus if you have only 1 'stick' of ram and it failed, your system wouldn't boot and you would not see anything on the monitor.  If you have 2 'sticks' of 4G each, you could try to remove one at a time and see it is boots.

I doubt it is ram.  Ram rarely fails.

The 'short drive test' check the hard drive.  That is a completely different component.  Hard drive (along with power supplies) are the component most likely to fail.  From your description, it sounds like a bad hard drive

I would recommend removing the hard drive and testing it in another PC just to be sure.  Then you can test if you can retrieve any data from the bad drive.  A new SSD starts around $50 and would be faster/larger.

You would have to reinstall Windows, all the programs, configure all the hardware (wifi, printer, sound, ports, etc) all the program settings (email info) and user data.  That is a HUGE job and would take a pro (decades of experience) 3+ hours and usually closer to 5hr to get you back up and running

Good luck.