1 RAM module not properly recognised...!?

simbeb

simbeb

New Member
Hi,

I have a AMD athlon 64 XP3200. My M/board is an Elite NFORCE4-A939. It takes up to a maximum of 4X 1Gb DDR-SDRAM and has dual-channel memory architecture.
I am using 4 Kingston ValueRam 1gb PC3200 CL3 184-pin (KVR400X64C3A/1G). They have all been bought new and at 1 month interval, so they're all fairly new, the latest one just a few days old.

So for the last month, I've had a working PC with 3 1Gb modules. Since I've installed the 4th one, instead of seeing 4gb RAM, both the BIOS and Windows only see 3.25.Gb. Where is the rest?

I first thought the newest module was faulty, so I tried it on its own: no probs. Then I thought it was not compatible with another one in the same channel, so I swapped them a few times: no change. This also proved that my memory slots are all in perfect working order. Last thing I did was to install them one after another, with a cold boot in between to check everything was fine before I add the following one. They all installed properly, and again, the last installed module made it amount to a total of 3.25Gb of memory.
My modules are all fine, my slots are all fine. What do I do next?..
 
If it XP, that the most it will see. Does it show up as the full 4 in the bios on boot. Pretty sure 3.25 is the most XP will see.
 
Yeah, XP will only see 3.25 of it, although you still have it all.

I think if you got the 64 bit version of XP it would see it all, but it isn't worth it. Vista would see it all also, but I don't think that's worth it either.
 
Kornowski said:
Yeah, XP will only see 3.25 of it, although you still have it all.

I think if you got the 64 bit version of XP it would see it all, but it isn't worth it. Vista would see it all also, but I don't think that's worth it either.
Click to expand...


If you are sure it actually uses the full 4Gb of RAM, I don't really care what Windows sees. Cheers for the info Kornowski.
 
It can't use it all. The address space for the last 0.75GB is used for addressing other things so the memory in that range cannot be used.
 
if the bios isen't reporting the full 4gb, then windows wont even if you did upgrade to a 64bit OS. because, well, the motherboard is only detecting 3.25gb, not 4gb.

sure you didn't accidently get sent a 256mb stick for the latest one?

something you could do is download CPUz.
it will show the total ram you have even if you have more then the OS will detect.
it can also give you info on each individual stick, like its size and brand.
 
Last edited:
zaroba said:
if the bios isen't reporting the full 4gb, then windows wont even if you did upgrade to a 64bit OS. because, well, the motherboard is only detecting 3.25gb, not 4gb.

sure you didn't accidently get sent a 256mb stick for the latest one?

something you could do is download CPUz.
it will show the total ram you have even if you have more then the OS will detect.
it can also give you info on each individual stick, like its size and brand.
Click to expand...


Hi,

I am not an IT pro alright but I can make the difference between a 256M module and a 1gb!.. Thanks for your advice, I'll try that. Cheers.
 
Hey simbeb,

I've got the same board and the same problem. Something that interests me about it though is that when I first installed the RAM, it did recognize all 4GB. Only just recently did I realize that a little more than 3.25GB was coming up.When I run cpu-z, it also shows that I have 4GB. Another thing I noticed was that if I run a 64-bit OS (Fedora 8 x86_64) only about 3.4GB shows up. I've been looking around for about a month now with no success on finding an answer to this riddle. I'll post back here if anything comes up.

...Actually, now that I think about it, I have changed something since then. I've added more SATA HDs to the mix and some more USB devices. I wonder if the peripherals are pulling too much power away from the PS... Maybe you could check that out. I've got a 500W PS, but about 7 HDs and all USB ports used. I'll test also and post my findings.

-Kwestr
 
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