4 Gig of RAM reading as 3

Hi. I have just built a new PC with the following components:

500W FSP Blue storm II PSU

Gigabyte GA P31-DS3L, iP31 Express

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (32 bit)

(2x2Gb) Corsair TwinX XMS2

XFX 8800GT, PCI-E 2.0

For some strange reason the RAM is being read as 3Gb when the PC boots up. It is in as dual channel. When going throught the RAM check at POST it shows as 4Gb, when windows checks it is is seen as 3. In Gigabytes system monitoring program it is also seen as 3Gb. I checked the units one at a time and they both are correctly identified as 2Gb in POST.

Anyone any ideas?

 

Only Windows Vista 64 bit supports 4 gig RAM :/

Edit: And also if you are confused as to why this is...here you can find a pretty detailed explanation.

 

Thanks for that, I had checked it out online:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx

believing that with the 32 bit OS it would register up to 4Gb with the 64 bit OS being required for RAM up to 8Gb.

It seems from the link that there would be quite a bit of tinkering to get this working, is there a bios update or patch for Vista that would help, and does it make any difference?

Thanks for the reply

 

Then why do they release information like this:


Physical Memory Limits: Windows Vista

The following table specifies the limits on physical memory for Windows Vista.
Version Limit in 32-bit Windows Limit in 64-bit Windows
Windows Vista Ultimate 4 GB 128 GB
Windows Vista Enterprise 4 GB 128 GB
Windows Vista Business 4 GB 128 GB
Windows Vista Home Premium 4 GB 16 GB
Windows Vista Home Basic 4 GB 8 GB
Windows Vista Starter 1 GB Not applicable

Bloody M$!

 

You can "force" windows Vista to access the extra memory on either 32 / 64 bit O/S's. If you research on google for "windows 3gb bcdedit switch".

This will allow the O/S to use the extra memory.

(Research /pae switch for 32 bit XP)

 

MS is really sneaky with advertising techniques, because that table ,raffs, is actually correct. If you read my article I posted earlier, it isn't a windows issue, but actually a logical issue. 2^32 = 4,294,967,296 bytes(4,096 megabytes). That is ,by definition, the limit of virtual address space you can have on a 32bit system.

RAM isn't the only thing that has it's own memory on your system. Any memory-mapped device(graphics card) takes up part of that address space. Which means that RAM can only "fill" up what ever space is left after all of your other devices are taken care of.

 

Thanks to all who took the time to reply. I will just have to content myself that the 4 Gb was a waste of money, (or maybe I should say VHP was )

 

Darn right. I have paid $400 for 2 copies of Vista. Then pirated XP back.

 

since im running 32home prem, i got 2 1/2 ram, should i get a total of 3? my ram runs idle at 44% usage lol

 

Ya, vista hogs your resources. I like the apperance, but overall I hate vista..

 

i use it for the dx10

 

Vista does seem to use alot of memory. Memory is pretty cheap to come by these days though. You can put 4gb in a pc for under 100 bucks. I am running vista premium 64 bit with 8gb of pc6400 with no problems. I cannot say nothing about 32 bit version but my system is running great. It sees all 8gb with no problems.