Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
XP has no problem recognizing 4Gb. However, I question WHY you need 4Gb. Waste of money. 2Gb is all anyone needs right now unless you're using some very specialized software (AutoCAD, professional hi-end Photoshop work, VMWare).
You also didn't mention if this was WinXP or WinXP64.
Some older mobos may have a problem with more than 2Gb, but I would assume this is recent (within 1 year) build? Also some budget mobos may have a problem with more than 2Gb.
Are you using 4 1Gb sticks or 2 2Gb sticks? Some mobos don't properly recognize 2Gb sticks.
Have you run MEMTEST86+ for a minimum of 12 hours? Does MEMTEST86+ see the entire 4Gb. If it does that would indicate a problem with Windows which would be peculiar since as I said, Windows has no problem with 4Gb.
You may need to update the BIOS on the motherboard (maybe the BIOS sees all the RAM but it's not allowing Windows full access to it). You may also need to update the motherboard drivers.
It's also possible that your RAM is incompatible with your Mobo. These forums are littered with posts by people who just go out and buy ANY ram and don't match the ram to their board, and then have problems.
Modern mobos are rather fussy. You should always use one of the manufacturer's online configurators to lookup the exact memory that guaranteed to work with your mobo.
Frankly if you can get it working stable with 2Gb I'd return the other 2Gb and be happy. You really don't need it.
Hope this helps...
The system is used to multibox everquest (4-8 instances simultaneously is the goal) along with some companion applications...it's extremely memory intensive. That was the point of so much ram.
WinXP, all updates and sp's. It's the Abit An8 SLI board, newest bios as of july or august. The board supports the ram configuration so far as i can tell, as there's a listing for 4 1gb modules of this type in the manual. Boot process recognizes the full amount of ram. Newest drivers for all hardware are installed, including the motherboard. It's the amd x2 4400 btw.
It's 4 1gb corsair xms modules. Each stick was used independently to boot the system and no problems surfaced. Memory reports correctly up to 2GB's, then the problems start. This is in keeping with all information available on the web about windows having issues with 3-4gb (you can google it, tons of people wanna know what the problem is and what to do about it, that's how I learned about the /3gb boot.ini in the first place, I was just hoping the anand crew had some additional or better information). What bugs me is that so many people are able to get system properties to show 3 or 3.5 or even 3.8gb's of ram, when so far I've been unable to get that far.
I've had the guy download memtest, he'll run it tonight and give me the results. I just find it odd that windows has so much trouble just reporting ram correctly.
8-(
Thanks for all the ideas though, it's what I needed.