Okay yesterday i just bought an additional (2 x 1GB) of ram on ebay.DDR2 6400 OCZ @ 800 mhz.when i added them on with the other 2 gb(2x 1G) i had on(all ram are the same) i get BSOD randomly also when i went to play games it appeared after a while.i removed the 1 gb stick and the computer works fine.I called ASUS (I have striker extreme) and they told me that its not a mo/bo problem but microsoft's and told me that there is a patch on microsoft that fixes this.Could someone help me? Computer info: Asus striker extreme BFG 8800 GTX OC2 2 x 500 GB SATA2 16 MB 200 GB SATA 8 MB OCZ PC 6400 SOE 800MHZ CORE2DUO 2.44 ghz
Unfortunatley I think 32-bit Windows XP is natively limited to 3.5GB by the x86 architecture. If your motherboard only supports 4GB RAM max then you will only see 3.5Gb Max. Problem statement: I just bought a system with 4GB of physical RAM in it. The BIOS posts 4GB, but Windows tells me that I have anywhere from 2.75 - 3.5GB of RAM. Where is the rest of my RAM? Summary: If you are running 32-bit Windows, you must live with it. You will not ever see all 4GB of RAM you've paid for. If you are running 64-bit Windows, you may have to live with it. Depending on your motherboard's chipset, your system may support memory remapping. If so, you will be able to use all 4GB of RAM. Detailed: Due to an architectural decision made long ago, if you have 4GB of physical RAM installed, Windows is only able to report a portion of the physical 4GB of RAM (ranges from ~2.75GB to 3.5GB depending on the devices installed, motherboard's chipset & BIOS). This behavior is due to "memory mapped IO reservations". Those reservations overlay the physical address space and mask out those physical addresses so that they cannot be used for working memory. This is independent of the OS running on the machine. Significant chunks of address space below 4GB (the highest address accessible via 32-bit) get reserved for use by system hardware: • BIOS – including ACPI and legacy video support • PCI bus including bridges etc. • PCI Express support will reserve at least 256MB, up to 768MB depending on graphics card installed memory What this means is a typical system may see between ~256MB and 1GB of address space below 4GB reserved for hardware use that the OS cannot access. Intel chipset specs are pretty good at explaining what address ranges gets reserved by default and in some cases call out that 1.5GB is always reserved and thus inaccessible to Windows. When looking at memory in systems (be it desktop or notebook) there are three questions to ask that will tell you the maximum amount of memory your O/S will be able to use: 1. What O/S Edition have you installed? a. 32-bit Windows is limited to a maximum of 4GB and cannot see any pages above 4GB. b. 64-bit Windows can use between 8GB and 128GB depending on SKU. 2. What address range can your processor actually access? a. Typically that’ll be 40-bit addressing today for x64 (Intel EM64T/AMD64), but older processors may be limited to 36-bit or even 32-bit 3. Can your system’s chipset map memory above 4GB? a. Mobile chipsets on sale today cannot (but that may change with time) b. Newer workstations (which use chipsets developed for single or multi-proc servers) usually can. Windows can remap memory from below 4GB to above 4GB and use it there, however, that relies on the three points above: 1. Can Windows access memory above 4GB? a. 32-bit – NO b. 64-bit – Maybe (due to chipset limitations) 2. Can your processor access memory above 4GB? a. If it’s recent then it might, and if it’s either AMD64 or EM64T it’s almost certain 3. Does your chipset allow pages to be remapped above 4GB? a. Probably not – and that’s what’s catching people who install 64-bit Vista to work around point 1 – they find they still cannot see above 4GB In some cases, OEMs may be able to tweak their BIOS to reserve less memory for platform use, but we’re not talking a huge difference (ie, 100’s of MBs). In the end a 32-bit OS and/or application can only, ever, handle 4GB of memory at a time, the AWE stuff just swaps chunks of memory in and out of that 4GB space, thus fooling the application and OS into using more space than it can “see”. Physical Address Extension (PAE), extends the physical address space to 36-bits if your HW supports this. For most operations, the processor execution units will only see 32-bit addresses, the MMU will take care of the translation to 36bit addresses. No swapping here, only page translations (which are used regardless of PAE being on or not), this is a fundamental feature of any virtual memory operating system. The OS and apps only see 32-bit addresses because the registers are limited to 32-bits (hence the “32-bit” architecture nomenclature). These are linear addresses which are extended to 36-bits in the translation to physical addresses, but they never show up in registers since there’s no room. It’s all internal until the address lines coming out of the chip are toggled. Thus my comment above about “if your H/W supports this (PAE)". I’m not going into how that works… So, the OS can happily handle up to 64 GB of memory for 32-bit PAE-able systems. Hope this helps explain the whole, ‘Why can’t I see 4 Gig of RAM in my system?” thing… BTW – This does not change for Vista either… references: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/en-us
if anyone knows a way to add the memory with the others with out using it?just so i dont have it on my table.XP Dosent have to use it.i dont care if am using 3 gb in xp. i just what to have all 4 gb on my pc even if i dont use the otherone.anysugestions?
Agreed. Make sure you have the latest XP updates & the latest motherboard firmware installed on your PC. Are all 4 sticks identical? Do they run at the same speed & have the same timings?
yes it the same model.I have windows xp sp2 June. Latest.When computer starts it displays all 4 gb on the screen meaning that bios is okay.
Just because BIOS boots doesn't mean it's stable. Windows uses your RAM, if it tries to address a space which can't run at the current timings then it will die.
Make sure your running at 2T memory timings in the bios. 1T timings with all 4 slots full with cause your kind of issues.
hello you can put 4GB ram in sistems with 939 and 754 sockets but only the operating sistem can use most of the 4GB ram. Also many aplication are limited to use a maximum 2GB ram. And the real thing... a memory page at 4gb will hard to access/read/use that one of 2GB Also will be the slot problem.... 4GB=4x1GB stick or 2x2GB stick. also you must read the all the mobo manual becouse there are not many mobo that suport sticks at 2GB
You can put 4Gb RAM in a PC but unless you are running XP-64bit or Vista-64bit you will never see all of the 4Gb. Only up to ~3.5Gb is usable. I explained this in my first reply at the top of this page.
even if you use xp/vista 64bits, the application that you use must be write for 64bit, if you run win32bit aplication on 64bit xp/vista, the aplication will only use 2GB of ram, even it needs more will simple use page file from hdd. try and see I dont have any aplication on 64bit in my pc only 32bit
There is a registry edit you can do to make your apps use up to 3GB of RAM (the remaining 1GB will be used by the OS). Just because you have same model memory doesn't mean it will work, is it the same revision? Different revisions may (and usually do) have different IC's. For instances, I have 2 x 1GB Corsair XMS PC-6400C4 rev.1.1 and I also have 2 x 1GB Corsair XMS PC-6400C4 rev.2.1 and they WILL NOT work together (most tricky on AMD, Intel can be a bit more forgiving). The rev.1.1 uses Micron D9 IC's and the rev.2.1 uses Promoss IC's. They have the same timings, but just like a motherboard RAM has a (BIOS) that may have subtle differences to work with certain IC.
? Okay. It's been a while and I'm looking at memory and would like to stay with XP 32-bit a while more before jumping to a 64-bit OS. A couple of clarifying questions please: 1. If I have Windows XP (Pro here) 32-bit and 2x2GB, what happens to operation? Can it still run dual channel? 2. I read somewhere where a person with this setup said "if you have 32-bit XP, it's only going to recognize the first module. However the commit charge limit in Task Manager shows a full 4GB."- which basically means that with this set-up, you only really get 2GB ready for disaster? Not even ~3GB? So am I forfeiting both performance and half my memory with this config?
First of all, if you are still getting BSODs, look at the error code and google it. I had this with my XP2500 system and discovered that it was a RAM speed problem (I was running the CPU on a FSB of 333, and the RAM on 400. It didn't like it...) Second, download and use Memtest86 or the original Memtest to check your RAM. The test can take a while and it is useful to run the test for a few loops (usually, I run it overnight) just to see if anything comes up. Also, any 32-bit OS can address 4GB of memory, BUT, most applications, unless you pass the /3GB switch to them (and don't ask me how, cos I don't know), can only use 2GB. The reason why you don't see 4GB in Windows, but you do in the BIOS is that the BIOS memory mapping takes about 1/2 GB from the top of the memory stack. Have a google for "4GB memory 32-bit" and see what comes up. CCGrok, If your mobo supports 2GB sticks and has dual channel available, then you will be able to use 4GB in dual channel mode. The OS has no influence on dual channel operation, it is a mobo issue. And the person who reported the 2GB problem was talking rubbish. If Task Manager sees 4GB, then Windows sees 4GB. What they were probably referring to was the individual application limit of 2GB (unless they have been optimised for large memory operations). Hope that helped. Andy
Windows XP 32 bit can support 4GB THEORETICALLY, but I don't think it can do it practically. I know that the maximum practical it can support is 2GB.
just like you have cmberry20 said... you have 4gb worth of addresses that a 32 bit OS can address... What addresses are used up by the chipset/video card and other devices determines what is left over for RAM.
this really doesn't sound like an issue with windows. Sure winxp 32bit will only see 3.5gb. thats not his issue here, he is getting blue screen of death errors. Most likely cause is the timings need to be changed when going from 2gb to 4gb of ram. Which has already been suggested in this thread. This thread at the ocz forums deals with the striker extreme. I suggest you take a look, http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29652 Here is another one with a user posting his timings: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30359 This thread has to do with 4gb and 32bit os: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28542 If you still have trouble goto the ocz forums for help with your ram. edit: When I said that last part I didn't mean for it to sound so rude, I'm just saying that the people there will have more experince with that board and ram so they can give more specific help.
