Memory config advice

Hi there,

I recently purchased a budget set up comprising of:

intel CD E6550 2.33
Asus P5K SE
8600gt 256mb
2gb DD2 800mhz

I originally purchased 4gb of ram for this, as the board supports up to 8gb. I discovered though when installed, Windows only showed 3.25gb installed. I did my research and found out about the boot.ini 3gz switches, and the PAE switch, tried these and still got 3.25gb. My friend was building a machine too so I sold one of the 2gb matched pairs to him. I did a bit hunting around and found the same brand in two 512 sticks, matched pair for a dirt cheap price of £10 and am awaiting delivery of these. My question is: how do I install these, as the Asus board has two pair slots. Do I mix the pairs, or stick 2gb in one and 1gb in another channel. The board literature says that it supports different sized modules installed.

 

By quoting myself from another thread I give you an answer to your first question.

This is why you can't see the full 4GB of memory.

 

You can probably run the odds & sods in single-channel mode, but for the faster dual-channel you really need a similar pair, or second best, the 2x512Mb in one channel and 1Gb in the other (both channels same total).

My Gigabyte board also says unequal totals in the channels can be used, using "Intel Flex Memory Technology" to give a part-dual, part-single channel mode, but I'd have installed the 2x2Gb matched pair for best performance. Or sell your mate the other 2Gb module and get 2x1Gb to add to the 2x512Mb for 3Gb.

See http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/cs-011965.htm for more on Flex Mem.

 

This is why windows sucks lol, my macbook pro can take more ram!

 

It's not Windows at all, it's the "32-bit" limit. If you run an x64 version you'll get the full 4GB.

 

With Vista Home Basic or Premium x64 you'll get a max of 8GB and with Business and Ultimate you'll get a whopping 128GB limit.

 

As my board only holds 8Gb, can I make up the rest with a pen-drive?

 

<hijack> Anybody know if MS has any plans for increasing the memory limit beyond 3gb for 32-bit XP...?</hijack>

 

I don't think even Microsoft can bend the laws of mathematics.

32-bit is 11111111111111111111111111111111 in binary, which equals 4294967295 bytes - this is the total, absolute theoretical maximum of addresses in ANY 32 bit system.

64 bit is more than that (18446744073709551615)

 

Aaaah, Ok--Thanx. I had no idea......