RAM Issues on Dell Inspiron 1100 Processors RAM Motherboards and Overclocking Question

Some of you know this issue already...

I just got a free Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop from my future father-in-law the other day. I have been trying to restore this machine so it can be useable again for surfing the interwebz or running a word processor (just simple minor programs).

It originally came with 2x128MB of RAM and for some reason it will only show that it has 128MB at the moment. I Googled it with a few results of the same exact problem, but no help. Here is what I have done so far:

- Ran Memtest86+ from my UBCD for about 3+ hours. It showed 254MB of memory available but only tested 116K-254MB. What is this about?

- I have swapped the RAM around in different slots and gotten a ton of different results. One stick worked fine in both slots and the other did not. Then they both worked by themselves in each slot. Then both together would not boot the laptop and then separately by themselves they would not boot. I would get 3-5 beeps as the system would try to boot and then it would take a bit to get it to turn off.

- Now after a few hours of sitting I started it up and it worked. Went into BIOS and it showed 256MB of available memory. Then started Memtest86+ again and it showed 128MB. No errors were EVER found on each of the tests.

Is it probably just overheating RAM and ready to be replaced? Motherboard problems? I do not think it is the DIMM's because the RAM would function in each slot at times. I can put up to 1GB in this system and Newegg has 512MB sticks for $20.99. This is what I want to do, but if it is something internally, then I would rather not waste the money.

Ideas?