Ok....I just got my two 1GB sticks of RAM in today for my Dell workstation....bringing it to a total of 4GB.....but I have a problem....

....the Bios recognizes all 4GB of RAM (all 4 sticks from Dell and are "supposedly" identical).....but Windows XP Pro will only recognize 3.25GB of the RAM...

...anyone know why this is and what I can do to get my other 0.75GB recognized?

 

Come back and ask again after you've used up the first 3.25 GB.

 

Ok.......I am pretty close to it.....I do alot of image editing with CAD....most files will range up to 3.5 GB.....I know that I have a pagefile....but I would assume that there is a vast difference between the RAM and Pagefile access.....

 

Onboard video? It would use a percentage, *I believe*, of the installed RAM...

Pagefile wouldn't have anything to do with what is physically shown, but I think video might...

 

I have an ATI card which is separate from the motherboard....and I would have a VERY hard time believing that video would steal 750MB of RAM......

 

I don't know, but I never saw this issue in PC's until they started making these "all-in-one" boards... Coincidence???
Nowadays, I see it on almost every PC... The only ones I think I don't see them on is the ones I'm not paying attention to...

 

Sorry, I am truly at a loss. I will ask some of the guys in the office and see if they have any ideas. I'll bet it will turn out to be something simple.

 

Just for S&G, did you disable the onboard video in BIOS?

 

usually is....This one time....at band camp....i was getting cold....then I realized the window was open.....funny huh.....

 

Try seeing what cpu-z tells you what the amount of ram is. If it reports back correct then windows XP is just reporting the amount wrong. The RAM will still be available to the OS.

http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpu-z-131.zip

 

Oh btw, the SPD tab in CPU-Z will break down the RAM by slot to help with diagnostics.

 

Dell

I don't know if this will help, but its a start if anything.

Also, I know missing 750 is allot though.

 

Interesting program.....turns out that the RAM is different manufacturers....the two original 1GB sticks are made by Samsung....my two new ones are Micron Tech......and this program indicates that it sees all 4GB (4096Mbytes)....So I will assume that this is just a flaw with Gates' stuff....maybe he will fix it in Vista....course everything will most likely be 64bit then......

Thanks VG!...

 

It's still wierd that the windows reporting would be off by that much. It's usually off a little, 20MB or so. You could look at what the task manager says but I doubt it will be any different than the windows properties. If CPU-Z is showing it all then your RAM is working correctly. Out of curiosity, do you have all the windows updates current?

 

Edit - My real suggestion would be 64bit XP. Here are two articles I found regarding the differences in what System Manager reports vs. BIOS.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=888137
http://www.pcbanter.net/showthread.php?t=807685
http://forums.amd.com/lofiversion/index.php/t62821.html

I think the true problem lies in the 32bit architecture. PAE is nothing more than a "bandaid" patch that allows their current 32bit architecture to address more memory because it expands the 32bit addressing to 36bits. The 3GB switches just tells the kernel to limit itself to 1GB of memory and leave the rest to the applications.

Our database server has never reported 4GB of memory within Windows under System Information/Task Manager, but booting does. Everything I've read said the 64bit versions don't have these problems and see all 4GB without "tweaks".