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Need a genius, quick!

R

redtom

n00b
Joined
Jan 12, 2007
Messages
15
XP Pro
ASUS A8N SLI motherboard
1 gig Kingston RAM, two 512 sticks

Bought 2 extra gigs Corsair RAM, two 1Gb sticks, same latency, speed, etc as Kingston (I was careful to match it as closely as possible)

System Properties only reports 2.5 gigs RAM

However, BIOS sees all 3 gigs, System Information reports 3 gigs under Total Physical Memory, and 2 under Available Physical Memory.

Bit confused... any ideas? Or is everything actually the way it should be?
 
What proc are you running? I had an issue similar to this a while ago. Some mobo - proc combinations don't like having mixed type and sizes of memory. Here are some thigs to check.

1. Make sure you have the 2 corsair sticks in the same dual channel slots.
2. Make totally sure that the corsair and Kingston are the same speed, ex: DDR400, not just running at the same speed
3. Check the spec sheet of your mobo and proc to make sure they can handle that memory setup.
4. Try taking out the Kingston and seeing if the system reports the correct memory size in all 3 places. Then add 1 stick of the kingston and check again.
5. Just to be sure set all your bios settings regarding RAM back to auto to make sure it's not a timing issue.

Post back on the results of these
 
However, BIOS sees all 3 gigs, System Information reports 3 gigs under Total Physical Memory, and 2 under Available Physical Memory.
Click to expand...

Looks like you are ok, Sysinfo is also seeing your 3 gigs (Total Physical Memory) and due to the operating system and whatever applicaions etc, little memory eaters hiding in your system tray that startup with windows, when you ran sysinfo about 1GB of memory was being used by software leaving you less than 2GB of available physical memory.

So the difference between Total and Available is how much your OS etc. is using. If you go into task manager and look at "processes" (you might have to use "View" from the menu to add "memory usage" to the columns, cant remember) you can see what is using how much.

You "memory loss" does seem high, lots of crap running in background I bet. But thats a subject for the software forums.
 
32 BIT OS can only access up to 4 GB of system memory total. 2 GB for the user area of Windows and 2 GB for the kernel. You have 2 options. Either have to use XP Pro 64 bit or use the /3gb switch.

This section describes necessary settings to get access to more than 2.0 GB of memory on Windows XP within a V5 process.
Background

By default, Version 5 processes on Windows can allocate up to 2.0 GB of memory for storing data and code. The 4 GB address space offered by the operating system being split in two areas of 2 GB each, first 2 GB for user mode, 2 other GB being reserved by the kernel. On Windows XP, it is possible to increase the default allocation capabilities up to 3.0 GB (3 GB for user mode, 1 GB reserved for kernel). Such capability requires additional tunings in order to be effective :
  • From an operating system standpoint
  • From a Version 5 standpoint
Operating System requirements

  • Windows XP Professional is required.
  • A modification of boot.ini file is needed to activate this capability at the system level. The boot.ini switch /3GB needs to be added in order to make 3 GB available for user mode applications. For example :
    [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 3GB" /fastdetect /3GB
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
    Notes :
    • Improper modification of the boot.ini file can cause the operating system to be inoperable.
    • For testing purposes of a given hardware configuration, it might be preferable to create several entries in the [operating systems] stanza, as documented in above example, as well as leave a non zero timeout, to allow user selection at boot time between regular boot and boot with the /3GB option; this can allow easy recovery in case the /3GB option causes a problem described in section Additional Operating Considerations below.
    • Modification of the boot.ini file requires administrative privileges.
    • Do not add the /3GB switch if running Windows 2000 Professional.
    • boot.ini file can me modified using bootcfg.exe utility delivered with Windows XP (see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q291980 for further details on bootcfg.exe utility) or by editing the file :
      1. boot.ini is generally found at the root of C: drive; in a command session (cmd.exe), make file editable :
        attrib C:\boot.ini -r -s
      2. edit, modify and save file
      3. reset file attributes :
        attrib C:\boot.ini +r +s
      4. reboot system to make the change effective
  • Amount of Real memory and paging space should be sized accordingly.
  • See the "Additional Operating System consideration" section in this page to size the number of free System Page Table Entries
Additional Operating System considerations

  • Some driver may not load correctly when /3GB switch is added to boot.ini. In such case, one would need to apply Service Pack 1 on Windows XP, and tune /3GB configurations with /USERVA switch in boot.ini file. See :
    Driver May Not Be Loaded with the /3GB Switch
    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q319043
  • Microsoft recommends that the number of free PTEs must be greater than 24000 . You can monitor the PTE consumption by using the System Monitor tool or perfmon. The object to monitor is "Free System Page Table Entries." When using the /3GB option and if the value observed is less that 24,000, you should reduce this value in 64 MB steps until values larger than 24 kilobytes (KB) to 26 KB are observed . You can do that by setting the /USERVA value to 3GB - (n x 64 MB) in the boot.ini . See Microsoft article "How to use the /userva switch with the /3GB switch to tune the User-mode space to a value between 2 GB and 3 GB" http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316739 .
  • If you upgrade your computer to Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) and you are using the /3GB switch or the /USERVA switch with the /3GB switch, Windows may not start. You may also receive an error message that states that one of the registry hives is corrupted. A supported fix is available from Microsoft through article
    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q328269
  • If you upgrade your computer to Windows XP Service Pack 2 ( SP2) and you are using the /3GB switch, CATIA may crash when using macro . KB890048 associated to the SRZ041014003627 case is correcting this problem. This fix can be provided by Microsoft on demand.
 
Thanks folks - I'm using an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ proc

Will have a go tonight with removing sticks and seeing how everythign gets reported

Incidentally, the motherboard manual says both channels should have the same amount of ram in each channel for best performance so I've got a stick of Corsair and a stick of Kingston in DIMM-A1 and DIMM-B1, and the same in DIMM-A2 and DIMM-B2
 
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