4GB RAM Not Being Detected? (Am I still able to use 4GB?)

B

Burke888

Gawd
Joined
Aug 1, 2004
Messages
613
My computer physically actually has 4 1GB sticks on ram plugged in the motherboard. I can see it with my own eyes. However when I open up Vista, it says something like 2.75GB or some odd number. From a little research around the web I believe this has to do with the 32 Bit format of Windows Vista that I am using. My question to you gurus is the following:

Will my computer use the 4GB of memory that is there, or will only use the 2.75GB that is recognized? In other words, is the rest of the RAM merely being wasted? Thank for the help!


BTW, any solutions to this problem?
 
To use the rest of the ram you need a 64 bit OS. A 32 bit OS can't access more, unless its something like Win2k3 server with PAE support.
 
I assume you're using GTX's in SLI?

You could free up 768MB of memory by pulling one of those cards :)

Or just go with a 64 bit OS.

In my case, I just have a single 8800GTS - so I don't mind only having 3.4GB RAM (out of my 4GB) accessible.

And yes, that 1.25GB that is not being reported by Windows is not being used.
 
calebb said:
I assume you're using GTX's in SLI?

You could free up 768MB of memory by pulling one of those cards :)

Or just go with a 64 bit OS.

In my case, I just have a single 8800GTS - so I don't mind only having 3.4GB RAM (out of my 4GB) accessible.

And yes, that 1.25GB that is not being reported by Windows is not being used.
Click to expand...

No, that's the weird thing. I actually only have a single 8800GTX hooked up, so I should have way more than 2.75 correct? Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate the help!
 
What motherboard do you have? There might be an option that needs to be set for 4GB operation.

Or you might have a bad chip - try swapping out 2 at a time and make sure you register 2048 in both cases. (And run memtest for good measure).

Yes, you should have ~3.3GB accessible... unless you're using any other peripheral with a large amount of memory.
 
Yea I'm having similar problems. I'm running 32bit Vista Business, with 4GB's of RAM. BIOS Shows all 4gb's working, then windows shows 3.25GB's. I only have a single 8800gtx, so it looks like thats the reason..
 
Astrogiblet said:
Yea I'm having similar problems. I'm running 32bit Vista Business, with 4GB's of RAM. BIOS Shows all 4gb's working, then windows shows 3.25GB's. I only have a single 8800gtx, so it looks like thats the reason..
Click to expand...

Yep! Windows can address 4GB of memory.

That memory includes:

BIOS's that are being shadowed to memory
FlashROM's that are being shadowed to memory
Any other card you have that has memory that needs addressing
And whatever is left can be addressed as System RAM.

You need a 32 bit OS with an abstraction layer (such as Server 2003 32 bit / Physical Address Extensions (PAE)) or a 64 bit OS to address more than 4GB total memory.
 
Ah ok. Yea, I'm also running a keyboard with onboard memory, and a sound card with onboard memory (I believe?).
 
Astrogiblet said:
Ah ok. Yea, I'm also running a keyboard with onboard memory, and a sound card with onboard memory (I believe?).
Click to expand...

Yep! Some soundcards can definitely count towards addressable memory! (especially those with custom sound sample memory banks)
 
My 32 bit with one 8800 GTX card, no pci slots filled, one hard drive and it shows 2.8 gb being addressed. Normal
 
haven't had a chance to try retail vista yet and I wanted to get something straight for a co-worker. He got a dell for some reason and it came with 4gb of ram and its reading around 3. Dell said that the hard ware uses the last 1gb with vista. But by what you guys are saying is that its just that the 32bit OS cant read that last portion. Is this correct and Dell was pretty much laughing at him :D ?
 
Occidio said:
Dell said that the hard ware uses the last 1gb with vista. But by what you guys are saying is that its just that the 32bit OS cant read that last portion. Is this correct and Dell was pretty much laughing at him :D ?
Click to expand...

:D haha, that made my day
 
My task manager shows 3326MB RAM free in Vista x86 and XP x86...

8800GTS w/640MB RAM

4096 - 640 = 3456

3456 - 3326 = 130MB reserved for other cards or just reserved by the system.
 
Ugh! I guess I need to memorize the thread numbers. It's fixed now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top