How many sticks are installed? What type are they? Have you swapped slots?
Try replacing the CMOS battery, maybe its not holding the upgraded settings.

i just restarted my computer and it only showed 1gig of ram

hmm.. when you restart your computer, repeatedly press F2 to get into BIOS. see if you can find what it says.

there are 2 sticks of ram, and i have never moved them around or added any. Im not sure which kind they are, but DDR rings a bell maybe? I also wanted to say how amazed I am for all of these quick responses, and i wanna thank you all whom are trying to help =) its really appreciated

i tried tapping f2 on the restart and it didnt do anything =( but there was a button to goto setup. is that considered the bios?

yes.

ok, thats what i checked before than. It only said 1gig of ram was installed even though there should be two. The thing i dont get is, why when I update my BIOS it would work properly but then after a power-down it wont recognize the second stick of ram.