Windows Vista Only showing 3gb....

bigbadwolfe

New Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2007
Hi,
I have an asrock ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 motherboard.
an intel Core 2 Duo E6600.
2 x Crucial 2GB kit (1GBx2) DDR2 PC2-5300.
Vista Home Premium x64Bit.

i was running quite happily on 2 x 1gb however i added a second set today making 4 gb in total.
it shows as all four in bios but vista is only reporting three.
what do i need to do to see the other gig?:confused:
__________________
 
There also is some motherboards that do not like certian Ram as well. Try this and see if it'll help you any and this software is free for today only and there is no official support do to the give away nor updates.

Giveaway of the day , may be useful to some of you today.:agree::agree: I downloaded it but don't know whether i will use it. Good tool to have though, if it works.

Giveaway of the Day - Driver Magician 3.26

Driver Magician offers a professional solution for device drivers backup, restoration, update and removal in Windows operating system. It identifies all the hardware in the system, extracts their associated drivers from the hard disk and backs them up
 
Cheers Charlie,

I have downloaded it....
Dont quite know what to make of it yet, but a freebie is a freebie.:D
 
This is very strange. If the 2 new RAM chips are the same I don't understand why Vista would accept one and not the other.

If the new RAM is a different make/serial # from the old RAM, make sure that the old RAM is SLOT 1 and 3 and the new RAM is 2 and 4. If you are mixing new and old RAM you should always do this.

Try running Memtest86. You'll need to make a bootable disk to run it but there are instructions on that page. What this will do is run full checks on all of your RAM to find any possible problems with it.
 
Hi,

All four sticks are exactly the same crucial memory.
It shows as 4096 mb in the bios.
vista reports it as 3199.
I am unable to use a boot disk as I have no floppy drive.
I will look into making a bootable cd though.
 
Try running Memtest86. You'll need to make a bootable disk to run it but there are instructions on that page. What this will do is run full checks on all of your RAM to find any possible problems with it.

I have now ran memtest for 14 hours, no problems to report
 
Running on x64-bit with 4GB right now and I don't have this problem, so to see someone else have this issue really is horrible. Try this:

Go to:

Start -> Search (or Run) -> msconfig
Go to Boot tab -> Advanced Options...

Make sure "Maximum Memory" is unchecked. If it is checked off with less than 4030MB this could be the problem.

Confirm Vista is 64-bit: Control Panel -> System

Under System type it should confirm: 64-bit Operating system

If both of these are good this is surely something in the BIOS that is not set right. Look for a Memory Hole or Memory Remapping option and set to disable or software instead of hardware.
 
Running on x64-bit with 4GB right now and I don't have this problem, so to see someone else have this issue really is horrible. Try this:

Go to:

Start -> Search (or Run) -> msconfig
Go to Boot tab -> Advanced Options...

Make sure "Maximum Memory" is unchecked. If it is checked off with less than 4030MB this could be the problem.

Confirm Vista is 64-bit: Control Panel -> System

Under System type it should confirm: 64-bit Operating system

If both of these are good this is surely something in the BIOS that is not set right. Look for a Memory Hole or Memory Remapping option and set to disable or software instead of hardware.

Hi Mike,

I have looked in msconfig, the memory box was unchecked but when I checked it I could not set a value >3200 it was set at 3199 by default.
If I were to re-install windows with the 4gb installed might it recognise it?

Thinking back I seem to remember after a re-install none of my programs seemed to work (this is back in the day of win 95) have things improved?

Any way I am unable to try at the mo as I am away for the weekend.

Depending on the reply I will/won`t on monday.;)
 
:update:




Just formatted and re-installed, still showing 3199mb.

Downside is it seems really slowly as well.
Really regretting buying vista 64bit.
Should have stuck to XP.
 
Possible reason

I have a Mesh PC(UK) with 4GB as standard but it only shows 3 available. I have been told that Vista can only see a maximum of 4GB so if you have a large memory graphics card, that takes you over the top limit, so hence the problem. My Vista is Home Premium 32 bit
 
Less than 4GB RAM showing

The reason why you can't see all 4GB of RAM is due to a hardware limit. Most chipsets can only address 4GB of locations. So the chipset puts the hardware addresses of the mainboard (COM ports, USB ports, etc) at the 4GB limit and fills in down from there. This usually takes the addresses from 3.5GB to 4GB. Depending on how well the motherboard was designed sometimes you get address duplication. Addresses from 3.5GB to 4GB also access addresses from 3GB to 3.5GB. So, usually 3GB of RAM is the best you can use without problems.
Windows (non-server versions) can only work with 4GB of RAM but the hardware limit gets there first.
(Most SERVER motherboards don't have this problem because of a special - expensive - chipset that can access more than 4GB of locations. But, they need the server OS to access over 4GB of RAM)
 
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