4 gig not being recognized

[Space Cowboy]

Any thoughts .. suggestions.. advice .. or links to solve this would be greatly appreciated.

http://forums.techguy.org/t407555.html

Thanks

 

[keeleysam]

Thanks for the link through 3 forums.

Did anything change at all when you put it in?

 

[Space Cowboy]

I'm callin out the big guns thats why all the links.. Sorry .. I'm posting everywhere till I get a answer then do what I must.

in order to get it to see the 4 gig dual channel I had to flash the BIOS. I even tried a beta BIOS upgrade from OCZ and same results.

thanks for your time.

 

[Markbnj]

Did you enable the memory remap flag in the BIOS? It may not be able to see 4 gig with that turned off.

 

[Space Cowboy]

Post test shows 4 gig and so does CPUZ .. My Computer only see's 3 gig and PC pitstop see's 4 gig but say's windows is only using 3 gig. I believe thats enabled but will look again.. Thanks

Calling out the big gun's

http://forums.techguy.org/t407555.html

System: http://anandtech.com/mysystemrig.aspx?rigid=30284

Mother: http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25870&page=1&pp=15

ANy thoughts before I request a refund?

Thanks

 

[n7]

This is why people don't use 4 GBs with XP.

There are limitations.
There are also workarounds, but i don't know how to activate them.

 

[ribbon13]

Windows XP 32bit can only see 4GB of memory. that includes page file. Have you tried turning the page file off?

 

[Accord99]

There are very few consumer level motherboards that will give you the full 4GB. PCI and other I/O devices get mapped to addresses starting at 4GB and going downwards. So usually 3.6GB is the best you can do. Supposedly, XP SP2 further limited it to 3GB due to NX bit support. If you want 4GB or more, then you're going to need a 64-bit OS and a workstation level motherboard that supports >4GB of physical memory.

 

[Rubycon]

Physical Address Extensions. (/PAE in BOOT.INI file)

Do note that no single application can "have" more than 2GB at one time. (XP IA32)

 

[Bozo Galora]

accord99 is quite right

Nothing wrong with the OCZ RAM, its XP and CPU mem controller and overhead issues.
You will NEVER get 4GB RAM in free use, 32 bit O/S, CPU

http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?ID=69
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

reporting 3.5 is very good actually, I usually get under 3 w/o tweaking

PCI slots take RAM, as do agp apetures, and now PCI-express can take up to 256MB
not sure, but dual 16X SLI PCI-E in use, may take 512MB
this space is pre-reserved by bios/chipset during initialization steps

there is also the "workaround" /3GB switch for boot.ini

http://tinyurl.com/alugk (Intel explains this problem quite well on their site)

http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/Windows...ralWeb/RAMVirtualMemoryPageFileEtc.htm


per this link below....., XP64BIT with an AMD64 will allow full 4GB due to greater bandwidth headroom
they mention bios setting that will appear under 64bit conditions to reserve necessary space in mem higher than 4GB actual.

(quote)
http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/bb/ftopic117376.html

Nothing to do with PAE or 3GB.

It is the hardware (chipset) via bios that reserves this space during
initialisation. On h/w that supports 64bit, the bios often now has a switch
to hoist these reservations over 4GB mark so that if a **32 bit OS** is
running, it gets to see all the RAM if there is 4GB.

If the h/w does not support 64bit (specifically >32bit addressing), then
this option will not exist.

PAE is poor man's extended ram = overlayed programming (puke).
(unquote)

 

[Rubycon]

Our workstations did not show all ram until PAE was turned on. Other OS's would see it. The hardware can address 64GB and some of the systems have 16 - all recognized.

Of course the OP does not have WORKSTATION hardware, it's a desktop board. Why they even have these limitations and advertise otherwise is beyond me especially when there is a real NEED for 4GB NOW.

 

[rafal]

Windows xp is 32 bit, so it has only 32 lines and thus it can only support 4 gig. From that, not everything gets to your systems, as some goes to graphic card etc. If you want to get the most out of your 4 GB, get the Windows xp 64 bit edition, as it can support up to 128 GB of ram.

 

[Space Cowboy]

I tried running PCPitstop with 3 different configs.

1) 2 gig ram
2) 4 gig ram
3) Advanced BIOS feature turned off so the post test only sees 3.4gig

And guess what.

All the scores are exactly the same on memory and system performance

I've tried all the switches /pae /3gb .... I've turned off the swapfile

The Mother board states it will support 4 gig dual channel.

So since I'm not sure about upgrading to Windows Xp 64 bit yet. Don't want to get bogged down in driver issues, which config should I use to get max performance or does it even matter.

Turn the memory remap flag in the BIOS? on and post see's 4 gig but windows only see's 3 gig

Or turn the option off and post see's 3.4gig and windows see's 3.25 gig?

Also another thought .. What about setting up a ramdisk and running the swapfile off of that. That way I may be able to take advantage of some of this extra ram till Vista gets here.

Thanks Everyone

 

[undeclared]

Yeah, I would think that the ram would be great once you start Vista, but until then who knows

I read somewhere that windows recognizes 4 gigs of ram, but uses 1.2 to improve its own performance, thus only allowing you to actually see 2.8 gigs, but I have no idea..

Either way, even if windows sees 3.25 gigs, it's still something I guess.

I would try Windows XP 64-bit just to see if its recognizes..heh

 

[Alkali]

Originally posted by: Space Cowboy
So since I'm not sure about upgrading to Windows Xp 64 bit yet. Don't want to get bogged down in driver issues

Ok, thats simple, goto Microsoft's website and download the Windows XP x64 Evaluation ISO. Try it.

It works great here, baring one driver issue I have sorted out now, and its the only OS I use for gaming/dev/movies/etc.

 

[Space Cowboy]

I'm not really into evaluation software and don't have the time right now to rebuild my operating system. Plus I think the 64 bit probably still has some issues that need to be worked out.

But thanks for the info.

 

[Alkali]

Originally posted by: Space Cowboy
I'm not really into evaluation software and don't have the time right now to rebuild my operating system. Plus I think the 64 bit probably still has some issues that need to be worked out.

But thanks for the info.

Fair enough, but the only way you'll get to use all that Ram is with a 64-bit OS... Whenever you feel like it though, you have the Ram already so

 

[Space Cowboy]

Anyone know how to setup a ramdisk drive with the extra ram so I can use it for a swapfile?

Thanks

 

[jalaram]

Originally posted by: Space Cowboy
Anyone know how to setup a ramdisk drive with the extra ram so I can use it for a swapfile?

Thanks

Have you tried turning off the swapfile? See if that changes the ram available.

 

[ribbon13]

Originally posted by: xtwells
Yeah, I would think that the ram would be great once you start Vista, but until then who knows

I read somewhere that windows recognizes 4 gigs of ram, but uses 1.2 to improve its own performance, thus only allowing you to actually see 2.8 gigs, but I have no idea..

Either way, even if windows sees 3.25 gigs, it's still something I guess.

I would try Windows XP 64-bit just to see if its recognizes..heh

Clarification, 32bit windows can address 4GB of ram, and any single application can only use 2GB. But some other things take address space (like the system BIOS for example) This comes from the 4GB limit heading backwards. For example, say your system components need 200MB address space. This address space is between 3.8GB and 4GB, limiting windows maximum addressable RAM to 3.8GB. If your system components need 300MB address space it comes between 3.7GB and 4GB, which limits windows to 3.7GB of ram.

 

[Space Cowboy]

It shows up correctly with SP1 as soon as SP2 is applyed is when it is not recognised. Tried the swapfile trick abd shut it off and no differance. WHen I run PC pitstop all the scores are the same even if I onlu use 2 gig vs. 4 gig.

Very Strange

So What I was thinkin is maybe I can setup a ramdisk that loads before windows and use the extra 1 gig for my swapfile. At least I would get some use out of it till VISTA is ready.

Thanks Everyone

 

[jalaram]

Originally posted by: Space Cowboy
It shows up correctly with SP1 as soon as SP2 is applyed is when it is not recognised. Tried the swapfile trick abd shut it off and no differance. WHen I run PC pitstop all the scores are the same even if I onlu use 2 gig vs. 4 gig.

Very Strange

So What I was thinkin is maybe I can setup a ramdisk that loads before windows and use the extra 1 gig for my swapfile. At least I would get some use out of it till VISTA is ready.

Thanks Everyone

This article might help.

Another link


I haven't seen anything to help you on the ramdisk idea however.

 

[w00t]

just wondering how many gigs your mobo supports ussually its at 4 but I have seen lower.

 

[Space Cowboy]

Thansk for the links. I've tried all the switches also and no go . /pae and /3gb and in different orders and bty themselves .. no luck. I do have those sites bookmarked and keep refering back to them.

My Motherboard supports 4 gig dual channel. I even have the OCZ guy's trying to help me out.

So far no luck.

I wanted to have all the same brand/kind of memory in the system and got the extra 2 gig for about 75 bucks. So I couldn't pass it up. Now the ram is maxed out for what the motherboard supports (I Think) and so far will take any AMD CPU I throw in it. I'll wait on those till the price comes down. The video card works fine for me and I don't see updating that unless VISTA requires it. I wouldn't mind a 300gb 10,000 RPM raptor but they don't have those yet

Thanks Allot for your Suggestions

 

[ribbon13]

Actually, the WD4000YR is based off of the raptor. Look at the benchmarks! It delivers some serious ownage! ZZF has em