Less RAM showing....

I bought two 2GB sticks of RAM (4GB total) and installed both just now, but my system is only showing 2.50GB of RAM.

It's compatible with my motherboard and the computer is stable and working fine.

Any idea what's up with that? (

You're most likely running a 32bit OS, you need a 64bit os.

32 bit limits you to like 3.2 or something along those lines.

But it should recognize more than 2.5, test your sticks individually. And run memtest84+ I think the name is

I just got 4 gigs of ram delivered today and I hope I don't get any bumm sticks.

Also what is your motherboards max supported ram?

Memtest takes foreeeeeeeverrrrr.

Well first, as mentioned, make sure your mobo/chipset supports 4GB, as some do not.

A 32-bit OS won't be able to use all 4GB, but you should be seeing at least 3GB -- most Windows installations I've seen will recognize between 3.25GB and 3.5GB max. It all depends on your motherboard and hardware configuration, as a portion of upper memory space is reserved for memory mapped I/O with hardware and drivers, and that all depends on what your specific system has in it.

On a side note, Vista makes much better use of extra RAM than XP. Get beyond 2GB or so with XP and you really don't see much if any benefit with the majority of applications. Vista will actually leverage extra unused RAM dynamically to improve performance.

memtest86+[=http//www.memtest.org/]memtest86+ is the app you need to test RAM with (download the bootable CD or floppy image), and it doesn't take that long really -- let it run it for several passes overnight to be sure, but if you're in a hurry, just run a few passes of Test 5 (IIRC), as it's the single most rigorous test that bad RAM usually fails on.

Now if you want to see something take a long time, try running Spinrite at a low level on a big hard drive -- that will literally take DAYS.

[quote7f61582866="dmorris68"]Well first, as mentioned, make sure your mobo/chipset supports 4GB, as some do not.

A 32-bit OS won't be able to use all 4GB, but you should be seeing at least 3GB -- most Windows installations I've seen will recognize between 3.25GB and 3.5GB max. It all depends on your motherboard and hardware configuration, as a portion of upper memory space is reserved for memory mapped I/O with hardware and drivers, and that all depends on what your specific system has in it.

On a side note, Vista makes much better use of extra RAM than XP. Get beyond 2GB or so with XP and you really don't see much if any benefit with the majority of applications. Vista will actually leverage extra unused RAM dynamically to improve performance.

memtest86+[=http//www.memtest.org/]memtest86+ is the app you need to test RAM with (download the bootable CD or floppy image), and it doesn't take that long really -- let it run it for several passes overnight to be sure, but if you're in a hurry, just run a few passes of Test 5 (IIRC), as it's the single most rigorous test that bad RAM usually fails on.

Now if you want to see something take a long time, try running Spinrite at a low level on a big hard drive -- that will literally take DAYS.[/quote7f61582866]

Yeah i'm going to go from 32bit xp with 1 gig of ram to 64bit vista with 4 gigs, i should be flying ;)

My motherboard definitely supports 4GB as I made sure to check before I bought it. I had 2GB in my computer before which I then put in my wife's PC and her systm shows 3.5GB. I'll do the memtest tonight when I get home.

Thanks for help.

Actually, if one of the sticks was faulty wouldn't it only show 2GB instead of 2.50GB? Or could it be faulty and just not be using all that it's capable of?

When RAM goes bad, anything could happen. I do remember once having a bad stick of RAM that reported only half it's capacity -- one whole bank of chips was inaccessible. 2.5 does sound like an odd number, but it could conceivably be some fraction of the capacity of a module. Have you gone into the BIOS to see how much RAM is reported there?

The BIOS says

Base - 640k
Extended - 4193280k
Total - 4194304k

And this is my motherboard http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138041

Is your video card allocating some of the RAM?

[quote86da85a1c2="doylnea"]Is your video card allocating some of the RAM?[/quote86da85a1c2]
Can't think of any video card that would be allocated that much. Shared-buffer vidcards are low-end models (usually integrated) that typically allocate anywhere from 8MB-256MB. He seems to be missing around 1GB, which is top-end video card country, none of which are shared-buffer cards.

And being a PCIe mobo, it's not an AGP aperture allocation either (which I think topped out at 256MB anyway).

I'm not really sure what's going on, unless his mobo just doesn't like the brand of RAM he bought, the RAM is faulty, or the mobo is faulty.

Have you run memtest yet, Frank?

Yeah I ran Memtest for a couple of hours, it got to 20%. I took a pic of it as I'm not entirely sure what most of it means. It does show no errors though but I'll leave it on overnight to be sure.

http/" alt=""/img511.imageshack.us/img="511/6078/dsc2409xe1.png[" alt=""/img0df7ce9c11]

It got past Test #5, which is usually the killer, but yeah let it run overnight. BTW if you ever want to run just a specific test, you can choose it from the Memtest configuration menu.

Memtest sees all 4GB, and no errors reported by the time of that pic, so all is looking good. I see only 276MB is being reserved (by the BIOS? Do you have a lower-end shared buffer vidcard? Or maybe that's reserved by Memtest, I don't remember). If the BIOS is allocating that much, then it would leave at least ~3.7GB for Windows, before Windows allocates its upper memory overhead, which certainly should not be as much as 1.2GB.

I'd be curious what CPUz[=http//www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php]CPUz reports on its Memory tab. Also the per-slot size that Windows is seeing, from the SPD tab. For comparison, here's screenshots from my new Dell laptop at work

[quote949ff74099="dmorris68"][quote949ff74099="doylnea"]Is your video card allocating some of the RAM?[/quote949ff74099]
Can't think of any video card that would be allocated that much. Shared-buffer vidcards are low-end models (usually integrated) that typically allocate anywhere from 8MB-256MB. He seems to be missing around 1GB, which is top-end video card country, none of which are shared-buffer cards.

And being a PCIe mobo, it's not an AGP aperture allocation either (which I think topped out at 256MB anyway).

I'm not really sure what's going on, unless his mobo just doesn't like the brand of RAM he bought, the RAM is faulty, or the mobo is faulty.

Have you run memtest yet, Frank?[/quote949ff74099]

On the system I just built using a Asus P5N-Em HDMI MB, I could allocate up to 512MB for the onboard video, I believe; I presumed that other MBs might allow for higher allocations.

msinfo32 can provide you with a memory map. There you can see which devices that eats up that much address space.

Heres a post from another forum

"I got it. Right click on my computer and click on properties. then go to the advanced tab on top and click on settings under start up and recovery. click edit under system startup and a notepad should open up. Go to the line that look like this

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /maxmem=320 /numproc=1

(THIS IS MINE WHEN I FIXED MY PROBLEM. YOURS MIGHT LOOK DIFFERENT)

read it and find MAXMEM=2560. CHANGE 2560 TO 3072. REBOOT. THIS SHOULD WORK!




THERE SHOULD BE A SPACE BETWEEN 3072 and /. like this maxmem=3072 / "

Well here are my screenshots

http//i39.tinypic.com/141p850.png[" alt=""/imgefb5cfe401]

[img="efb5cfe401]http//i40.tinypic.com/25p1c40.png[" alt=""/imgefb5cfe401] [img="efb5cfe401]http//i39.tinypic.com/2uj5tte.png[" alt=""/imgefb5cfe401]

Also, manOFice, I checked that ou and I don't even have a "maxmem" line, this is all I have

[quoteefb5cfe401][boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows Vista" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT[/quoteefb5cfe401]

I don't have XP currently with me right now ... but you can try this. Go to Run ... then type in "msconfig".

Go to the "Boot" tab and then click advanced settings, and I know in Vista there's a Maximum Memory box to type a number in, so you can try 3072, or the number that will best work...but I don't remember if that's in XP or not.

Actually I found it...it's a little different in XP

http//articles.techrepublic.com.com/i/tr/cms/contentPics/t01220020613pit01_04.gif[" alt=""/imgbfc5bb740a]

you go to msconfig, then the boot.ini tab, then advanced options, and change the "maxmem" setting.

[img="bfc5bb740a]http//articles.techrepublic.com.com/i/tr/cms/contentPics/t01220020613pit01_05.gif[" alt=""/imgbfc5bb740a]

Cool, thanks FOAF.

So is this safe to play around with? What are the possible ramifications of doing so?

[quote9648f90cf6="doylnea"]On the system I just built using a Asus P5N-Em HDMI MB, I could allocate up to 512MB for the onboard video, I believe; I presumed that other MBs might allow for higher allocations.[/quote9648f90cf6]
I guess I'm not too surprised with an HDMI-capable integrated board that a shared framebuffer would have swelled to 512MB by now, but that's still a lot less than what Frank is missing, plus he doesn't have a higher-end board like that anyway.

[quote9648f90cf6="manOFice"]msinfo32 can provide you with a memory map. There you can see which devices that eats up that much address space.[/quote9648f90cf6]
It will give you a memory map, but it's virtually useless to a lay person. I can read and decode hex in my sleep, but the memory map displayed by msinfo32 is both non-contiguous and overlapping, so it's hard even for me to make any logical conclusions from just looking at it. Plus it also complicates matters by including low memory allocations which aren't at play in a situation like this, which is typically due to upper memory allocations. Nonetheless, it might interesting to see Franks map just for comparison purposes. We'd be able to see, for example, just how much is allocated to his video card. In my Dell laptop's case, it has a 512MB Nvidia Quadra 160 graphics card, split between 256MB dedicated and 256MB system RAM, but my memory map only has 128MB allocated for the video card at the moment -- I presume it's either configurable or dynamically increased as needed, but I don't need that kind of VRAM in a work laptop so I've never bothered to look into it.

[quote9648f90cf6="manOFice"]Heres a post from another forum

"I got it. Right click on my computer and click on properties. then go to the advanced tab on top and click on settings under start up and recovery. click edit under system startup and a notepad should open up. Go to the line that look like this

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /maxmem=320 /numproc=1[/quote9648f90cf6]

The MAXMEM setting should NEVER be active by default. It's typically used by engineers or developers who need to artificially limit their available memory for testing purposes, without having to physically pull their RAM modules. I have never heard of this being configured in a default Windows install, which is why Frank doesn't see the entry in his boot line -- if he or something else hasn't changed it, it shouldn't be set. And when it isn't set, then memory isn't limited at all.

While I don't see that as being a solution, but it won't hurt you to try as long as you don't set it too low (which you obviously wouldn't do in this case).

http//support.microsoft.com/kb/108393

Ok, so I changed ti to 3072 and now it's only showing 2GB. When I change it back to the default, with nothing checked and in "Normal Startup Mode" it still only shows 2GB. If I do try to manually change the MAXMEM it automatically sets it to 2048.

/cry

[quotef02018e793="theysayjump"]Ok, so I changed ti to 3072 and now it's only showing 2GB. When I change it back to the default, with nothing checked and in "Normal Startup Mode" it still only shows 2GB. If I do try to manually change the MAXMEM it automatically sets it to 2048.

/cry[/quotef02018e793]

I know it sounds drastic but perhaps a CMOS and Bios reset and reimage??

[quote5e9734a7a5="theysayjump"]Ok, so I changed ti to 3072 and now it's only showing 2GB. When I change it back to the default, with nothing checked and in "Normal Startup Mode" it still only shows 2GB. If I do try to manually change the MAXMEM it automatically sets it to 2048.

/cry[/quote5e9734a7a5]
You sure the MAXMEM switch is completely removed from your boot.ini? Open up C\boot.ini in Notepad to view the file directly (carefully!) to be sure. It's a hidden file, so in case you haven't enabled visibility of hidden files, you can just go to Start -> Run and type [b5e9734a7a5]notepad c\boot.ini[/b5e9734a7a5]

You should see no mention of MAXMEM anywhere at all. I can't see you losing another 512MB of RAM just from trying it and then removing it. Also it goes without saying these changes require a reboot.

Yeah the boot.ini is exactly the same as it was when I posted above. I rebooted a couple of times and now it's showing 2.50GB again.

If it passed a complete Memtest, then at this point I'm stumped and have to say your mobo/RAM/Windows combination has a problem. BIOS sees all 4GB, as does CPU-Z. I see no other valid reason why you'd lose 1.5GB of RAM when the vast majority of 32-bit 4GB systems lose no more than 1GB and usually quite a bit less (such as my laptop, which has 3.48GB available, and laptops usually lose more upper RAM than desktops due to all the integrated components). That or you maybe have a rogue or buggy driver that is memory mapping way too much RAM. I suppose you've run a recent virus scan? Not that I recall a virus that steals RAM like that, but if written at the kernel level like a driver, it would certainly be possible.

Biostar motherboards have a reputation for being a decent value board but are sometimes flaky -- I've only used them in low-end builds that never approached 4GB of RAM, so I don't know if this is a mobo design issue but it might be. Might be worth digging up others who have the same board and 4GB, to see what they get. The Athlon64 has an embedded memory controller unlike Intel CPU's prior to i7, which rely on a mobo chipset with varying degrees of RAM support, but the board could have cut corners somewhere that your RAM doesn't like. If you have any access to different RAM modules, I'd be curious if you saw the same from another brand. Some mobo brands just dislike some RAM brands.

Well thanks for the help anyway, I appreciate it.

I'm going to try the RAM in my wife's computer and try her's in mine see how that works.

I think when I got up this morning Memtest had run four times completely, but I could've misread it. Last night before I went to bed I did try the different tests and one of them was called BIOS - ALL and when I did it, it generated about 5,120 errors and then the computer restarted and everything was all fucked up. I rebooted a couple of times and it went back to normal.

shrug

Thanks though. )

Oh also, I've got no idea whether it would be an issue or cause an issue or not, but my MBR has four different installations showing up (which you can see on the boot.ini file above). I only use the first one, but the others are from other dual-boots and installations I've had in the past.

----------------
Listening to Gomez - Even Song[=http//www.foxytunes.com/artist/gomez/track/even+song]Gomez - Even Song
via FoxyTunes[=http//www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/]FoxyTunes

You can safely delete those old boot entries, just be careful you don't kill the wrong one. Make a backup just in case, and if you hose it you'll have to reboot in Safe Mode to fix it.

I've done a bit of Googling and found other accounts of people reporting 2.2-2.5GB of RAM, but were told it was because of their SLI dual video cards. From talking to you in the past, you're not a big gamer so I don't see you having 1GB or more of VRAM, and besides, Windows doesn't normally memory map the entire VRAM range (despite what some people on the interwebs claim). Still, from my reading of Mark Russinovich's blog here[=http//blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx]here, his SLI gaming rig with dual 1GB video cards reported only 2.2GB free despite the memory map showing only 256MB was allocated to each vidcard. He suspects that some chipsets or memory controllers are simply too aggressive in how much RAM they reserve for hardware. Even in that scenario, he has 2GB of video RAM and he still sees about the same usable RAM as you -- and I presume you don't have anywhere near that much VRAM.

And having somewhat of an idea as to your usage patterns, I can't think of another device you could have that would consume mass quantities of RAM as hardware memory mapping. So I'm still stumped and have to chalk it up to a flaky mobo/BIOS/RAM/OS issue.

What exactly do you have attached/installed as far as hardware?

Hmmm.......That's strange. I'll get rid of those boot entires, but as for my hardware I have

Mobo - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138041
CPU - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103733
Video Card - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141032
HDD 1 (OS) - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136033
HDD 2 (Storage) - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148298
RAM (what I just bought)- http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122

The only stuff I have connected to my PC is my Logitech 5.1 speakers, Linksys wireless card, my HP w2207h monitor, wireless mouse and keyboard and my iPod/iPhone and camera via USB.

Thanks for looking into it more, you really don't have to. If it doesn't work with switching RAM with my wife's I'll send them back and see if getting replacements makes a difference.

[quote01879d37c0="theysayjump"]Hmmm.......That's strange. I'll get rid of those boot entires, but as for my hardware I have

Mobo - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138041
CPU - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103733
Video Card - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141032
HDD 1 (OS) - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136033
HDD 2 (Storage) - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148298
RAM (what I just bought)- http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122

The only stuff I have connected to my PC is my Logitech 5.1 speakers, Linksys wireless card, my HP w2207h monitor, wireless mouse and keyboard and my iPod/iPhone and camera via USB.

Thanks for looking into it more, you really don't have to. If it doesn't work with switching RAM with my wife's I'll send them back and see if getting replacements makes a difference.[/quote01879d37c0]

thats some decent ram too, I almost bought it for my new rig but read that ram has problems on AMD systems.....

Well if that RAM has been reported as having problems with AMD systems, then there you go. Like I said, some RAM brands just don't jive with some mobo models. Especially when you get into enthusiast mobos and RAM. Your mobo is a value-line model, but the RAM is pretty high end as far as the timings go -- mixing the two is often a recipe for problems. I'd go with some standard vanilla DDR2 RAM, nothing fancy, because with that mobo you're not going to see any extra benefit out of a higher speed RAM anyway. The plain stuff will likely be more compatible.

[quote650f7b28d3="dmorris68"]Well if that RAM has been reported as having problems with AMD systems, then there you go. Like I said, some RAM brands just don't jive with some mobo models. Especially when you get into enthusiast mobos and RAM. Your mobo is a value-line model, but the RAM is pretty high end as far as the timings go -- mixing the two is often a recipe for problems. I'd go with some standard vanilla DDR2 RAM, nothing fancy, because with that mobo you're not going to see any extra benefit out of a higher speed RAM anyway. The plain stuff will likely be more compatible.[/quote650f7b28d3]

This is what I just got, vista gave it a 5.9 rating

http//shop1.frys.com/product/5530560

Yeah, standard Crucial is pretty much always a safe bet, and if you go to their website, they have a RAM finder where you can specify your motherboard and they'll give you the RAM part# that is known to work in it.

Which brings me to what I think is Frank's problem! According to the Crucial RAM finder thingy, and I'll bet it's backed up in Frank's mobo manual, [bd230fd4b69]this mobo only supports 1GB per slot![/bd230fd4b69].

http//www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=NF4U%20AM2G

[quoted230fd4b69]Each memory slot can hold DDR2 PC2-8500,DDR2 PC2-6400,DDR2 PC2-5300 with a maximum of 1GB per slot.li [/quoted230fd4b69]

So Frank, you're trying to cram 2GB per slot in there. I'm pretty sure that's your problem, the mobo can't recognize all of the banks on the higher density modules.

[quote74b33233bd="dmorris68"]Yeah, standard Crucial is pretty much always a safe bet, and if you go to their website, they have a RAM finder where you can specify your motherboard and they'll give you the RAM part# that is known to work in it.

Which brings me to what I think is Frank's problem! According to the Crucial RAM finder thingy, and I'll bet it's backed up in Frank's mobo manual, [b74b33233bd]this mobo only supports 1GB per slot![/b74b33233bd].

http//www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=NF4U%20AM2G

[quote74b33233bd]Each memory slot can hold DDR2 PC2-8500,DDR2 PC2-6400,DDR2 PC2-5300 with a maximum of 1GB per slot.li [/quote74b33233bd]

So Frank, you're trying to cram 2GB per slot in there. I'm pretty sure that's your problem, the mobo can't recognize all of the banks on the higher density modules.[/quote74b33233bd]

Well that would definitely do it?

(

Switched out my wife's with my new RAM (she has 4 x 1GBs) and it's still only showing 2.50GB and hers shows 3.25 with my RAM.

I was thinking of getting a new mobo/cpu anyway so maybe I'll just do that.

Thanks though.

Well then your CPU/mobo is cursed. Take it to a voodoo priestess and have it disposed of in accordance with ancient ritual, so as to not allow the RAM demons to possess your new gear.

/crosses self

Glad to see I'm not the only one that resorts to the cursed explanation.

Shite bucket.