Full RAM not detected.

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Durango_Boy

New Member
Motherboard - Asus P5WD2 'T' Intel 955X ATX

RAM - Patriot 1GB 240 Pin DDR2 SDRAM (4)

OS - Windows XP Professional Enterprise (SP3)

Problem - The motherboard specs show it supports 4GB of DDR2 SDRAM, and has 4 slots. I have 4 identicle sticks of RAM installed. Window's only detects 3GB of RAM.

I have tried them in configurations of 2GB with different sticks and all sticks seem perfectly operational.

Is there a ceiling in Windows XP that limits me to 3GB of memory? Is there perhaps a setting I need to change allowing the OS to detect all 4GB of RAM?

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks,
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Windows XP has a limit of 4gb of memory, however, due to hardware limitations usually you will only see 3 - 3.25 gb of available memory.
 
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Durango_Boy

New Member
johnb35 said:
Windows XP has a limit of 4gb of memory, however, due to hardware limitations usually you will only see 3 - 3.25 gb of available memory.
Click to expand...


What are some usual hardware limitations?

I have 4 GB installed and I would like to utilize all of it.

Question: If I have 4GB installed, and an only able to use 3GB, is that 4th stick dragging the system down or is it not harming performance?

Thanks.
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
You won't be able to utilize all 4gb of memory. What ever is left over is allocated to hardware addresses. If you want to utilize 4gb or more of memory, you will need to install a 64 bit operating system.
 
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Mitchell

New Member
I remember reading about a 64-bit windows xp, but I can't recall where i found it. Plus all your hardware must be 64-bit compatible to use it.
 
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Durango_Boy

New Member
I'm not really interested in swapping to 64 bit.

I guess it's not that big a deal if I have to go through all that to use my 4 GB.

That unused allocation isn't going to hurt performance is it? Having 4 installed when it's only using 3?
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
What I would do is this....

Use the computer as you normally would and check ram usage. If you aren't using anywhere near 2 gb then remove 2 sticks. If you remove only 1 stick then you lose dual channel capability.
 
BlownFiveLiter

BlownFiveLiter

Member
Mitchell said:
I remember reading about a 64-bit windows xp, but I can't recall where i found it. Plus all your hardware must be 64-bit compatible to use it.
Click to expand...

Plus there wasn't much software support, or hardware support from manufacturers, for that matter. It really didn't catch on at all, and was quickly replaced by Windows Vista x64.
 
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Durango_Boy

New Member
johnb35 said:
What I would do is this....

Use the computer as you normally would and check ram usage. If you aren't using anywhere near 2 gb then remove 2 sticks. If you remove only 1 stick then you lose dual channel capability.
Click to expand...


I need to make a correction.

I checked and it seems my system is only recognizing 2GB of the 4GB installed.

I don't know why I remembered it as 3GB, but every time I ran a different configuration in 2 stick increments, it only recognized 2GB.

How does that change things, knowing I have 4GB of the same RAM installed, and the realistic system ceiling is 3GB?

Thanks,
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Usually, you enter the bios from when you restart your computer by pressing the del key but could be any other key like f1, f2, f10.
 
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Durango_Boy

New Member
johnb35 said:
Usually, you enter the bios from when you restart your computer by pressing the del key but could be any other key like f1, f2, f10.
Click to expand...


In BIOS, memory is reported at 4032MB. Seems all 4GB of RAM are recognized by the computer, so for some reason Windows thinks I have 2GB.

Thoughts?
 
linkin

linkin

VIP Member
Have you got the MAXMEM option checked in the msconfig utility? That will cause issues and my 64-bit copy of vista (when I had it installed) will do the same thing. While you're in msconfig, check the NUMPROC option and set it to the number of cores your CPU has, this option sets how many cores windows will use when booting, helps decrease your boot time a bit :)
 
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Durango_Boy

New Member
linkin said:
Have you got the MAXMEM option checked in the msconfig utility? That will cause issues and my 64-bit copy of vista (when I had it installed) will do the same thing. While you're in msconfig, check the NUMPROC option and set it to the number of cores your CPU has, this option sets how many cores windows will use when booting, helps decrease your boot time a bit :)
Click to expand...


I checked on the two suggestions.

MAXMEM is peeked at 2048MB. Why can't I increase that?

NUMPROC was set at 1, which for now is accurate.
 
AlienMenace

AlienMenace

Well-Known Member
Why Windows xp x64 didn't catch on, it was created before it's time. 64bit was not the thing yet. Just like when windows moved from 16 bit to 32 bit. It took a while. And when Vista came out the manufacturers jump over windows xp x64 and went straight to vista. Funny, some programs didn't like running with it, but I found some programs didn't like Vista either. Go with Windows 7 if u decide to go x64bit. I have no trouble running Windows xp x64bit.
 
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