There are three main things that came to mind:

1.) The motherboard requires RAM to be installed in like pairs. This is rarely the case outside of RDRAM, but still a possibility, particularly with cheaper motherboards. (It's the same brand, but different capacities and different timings.) You may want to call the motherboard manufacturer and see what they have to say.

2.) The RAM is not up to par, something that may be caught using the free utility Memtest86. You could also try inserting just one stick at a time and running a performance test on each one to report the *actual* read/write speeds, latencies, etc. Off hand I believe the free version of PCMark05 would be sufficient.

3.) It could just be a peculiarity in the design of the performance indicator. Prior to release there were several known inconsistencies, and something may have slipped out the door into the final version.

I'd look into the first two, and if everything comes back OK and you're not suffering a noticeable decrease in system performance I'd let it be. If you are truly concerned you could try upgrading the BIOS (there is an update available) or adjusting the timings, but note that both do present risks, including permanent failure of the hardware. Thus, it may be best to rely on your experiences and not what Windows is telling you.

John