4GB of ram only showing up as 3 GB

[foolsfortune]

I've installed 4GB of ram in my new PC and it only shows 3GB (or 2.93...something crazy) I've searched on it and found others with similar probs but haven't seen any solutions.

Can I get this thing to "see" the whole 4Gb? It's two 2048mb Corsair sticks.

Thanks
Mike

[MonoBrow]

If you have a 32 bit operating system its all you get.(like win xp 32 bit or vista 32 bit)
If you have a 64 bit operating system i have no idea why that is happening.

[timmcallister]

ehh. this comes up a lot.

In short...

A 32bit OS (like Windows XP and Vista) can only address 4GB of MEMORY. When your computer boots up, it starts talking to things like controllers, sound cards, video cards. It reserves this memory in order to continue talking to these things.

Finally, when all these things have been assigned memory addresses, it looks at your RAM. Whatever remaining addresses there are, will be assigned to your RAM.

So, it's pretty typical to only be able to use 2.5 - 3.5GB of RAM in a 32bit OS. The only thing you can do to help the problem is reduce the memory required by all your other stuff, for example, use a 256MB video card rather than a 512MB.

[iomegaman]

I'm running Vista 32 and it see's all 4 gigs...don't know if it actually addresses it, but it does show up...

Need to install SP1

If its Xp...well your stuck.

[foolsfortune]

Hmmm... I did install WinXP home so I guess I'm stuck in 32bit mode. What can I upgrade to if I want to use all of my ram?

I'm using this ram...

Newegg.com - CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

this mobo...

Newegg.com - ASUS P5E-VM HDMI LGA 775 Intel G35 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

and so far, just sticking with the on board video.

[SONICA]

Read on,

Crucial FAQ - Answer

[johnjm22]

Originally Posted by Madgan Sound

Mike, the first thing I would do is run some memory tests on the two sticks of ram to make sure an unusually large amount of sectors are not bad. That is the reason why installing a certain amount of ram may yield a machine that can only see/use a certain percentage of it. It is the same reason why buying a 100GB hard drive may only yield 93GB of usable space. A certain amount of bad sectors are tolerable and generally accepted but your case seems a little extreme. Bear in mind that the resources required by your machine to run (ie: ram utilization) have nothing to do with the overall ram amount your machine will recognize. Graphics cards that use large amounts of ram (256MB - 512MB+) will almost always have their own on board memory and have nothing to with your system ram, except for in the case of some laptops. You say your machine is new so I will assume the systems BIOS is up to date and the motherboard can support the 4GB amount. If this is the case, check the sticks.....

His system only showing 2.9GB of RAM is perfectly normal...

[borg64]

Originally Posted by Madgan Sound

It is the same reason why buying a 100GB hard drive may only yield 93GB of usable space. A certain amount of bad sectors are tolerable and generally accepted but your case seems a little extreme.

Actually, this has little to do with bad sectors.

Copied and pasted from Gigabyte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Although most manufacturers of hard disks and Flash disks define 1 gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes, the computer operating systems used by most users usually calculate a gigabyte by dividing the bytes (whether it is disk capacity, file size, or system RAM) by 1,073,741,824. This distinction is a cause of confusion, as a hard disk with a manufacturer rated capacity of 400 gigabytes may have its capacity reported by the operating system as only 372 GB, depending on the type of report.

An example, take a hard drive that can store exactly 250×109 or 250 billion bytes after formatting. Generally, operating systems calculate disk and file sizes using binary numbers, so this 250 GB drive would be reported as "232.83 GB". The result is that there is a significant discrepancy between what the consumer believes they have purchased and what their operating system says they have.

Sorry for going OT.

[Zuewi]

You can upgrade to Xp64 bit edition or Vista to use the 4Gb.

Originally Posted by foolsfortune

Hmmm... I did install WinXP home so I guess I'm stuck in 32bit mode. What can I upgrade to if I want to use all of my ram?

I'm using this ram...

Newegg.com - CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

this mobo...

Newegg.com - ASUS P5E-VM HDMI LGA 775 Intel G35 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

and so far, just sticking with the on board video.

[Altitude909]

Originally Posted by SONICA

Read on,

Crucial FAQ - Answer

To add on this since this comes up so often: The reserved memory space will ALWAYS be allocated by win32 (2k, XP, or Vista), so even if you have 3 gigs and windows and bios shows 3 gigs installed, whatever overhead is needed for vid cards and other OS duties is STILL reserved out of those three gigs so the size of your usable RAM will NEVER be 3 gigs.

Furthermore, windows programs are only able to address 2gigs (with an exception) of physical memory and 2 gigs of virtual memory anyway for a total of 4gigs, the most possible for a 32bit program (most programs only using 2).

4 gigs of RAM in a 32bit environment only really makes sense if you are using standard software (not LMA, i.e. Large memory address aware, this is the exception to the 2gig rule) with a ton of hardware which will result in more than a gigs worth of reserved space, or a LMA program (most daws are) with meager hardware memory requirements which will ensure that the OS never come close to using up that last gig. Otherwise, that last gig pretty much goes unused.

[stafs]

FAQ: OS RAM Limitations

I'm shure, this helps! thumbsup

[bcgood]

64 bit = 4 megs anything less than 64 bit OS configuration and you can't utilize 4 gigs.

[esaias]

Listen to this man
This is the correct answer.

-Tomi

p.s. if you come across the /P resolution, DON'T DO IT! it doesn't work.

Originally Posted by timmcallister

ehh. this comes up a lot.

In short...

A 32bit OS (like Windows XP and Vista) can only address 4GB of MEMORY. When your computer boots up, it starts talking to things like controllers, sound cards, video cards. It reserves this memory in order to continue talking to these things.

Finally, when all these things have been assigned memory addresses, it looks at your RAM. Whatever remaining addresses there are, will be assigned to your RAM.

So, it's pretty typical to only be able to use 2.5 - 3.5GB of RAM in a 32bit OS. The only thing you can do to help the problem is reduce the memory required by all your other stuff, for example, use a 256MB video card rather than a 512MB.

[JB872]

Originally Posted by timmcallister

ehh. this comes up a lot.

In short...

A 32bit OS (like Windows XP and Vista) can only address 4GB of MEMORY. When your computer boots up, it starts talking to things like controllers, sound cards, video cards. It reserves this memory in order to continue talking to these things.

Finally, when all these things have been assigned memory addresses, it looks at your RAM. Whatever remaining addresses there are, will be assigned to your RAM.

So, it's pretty typical to only be able to use 2.5 - 3.5GB of RAM in a 32bit OS. The only thing you can do to help the problem is reduce the memory required by all your other stuff, for example, use a 256MB video card rather than a 512MB.

My OS is Windows XP Home Edition and I have 4GB of RAM installed but Windows only sees 2.18GB of it, which is under the typical 2.5-3.5GB. Is this about right considering I have a 256MB video card and three UAD-1 cards installed?

[dannycurtean@yah]

RAM depends on the OS bit architecture. If 32 bit, you can only use about 3 GB of ram and cannot do anything about it. Now if you have 4 gb of ram and its only showing 2 gb of it, its not that alarming. I have a 790i Motherboard and it only shows 2.8 of 4 gb in vista 32 bit. It just depends on the motherboard what shows.

No matter what shows, a 32 bit OS only can use about 3 gb.