Hello all.. I just got back into computers after hiatus for about a year or two. The mobo on my Socket A rig (running strong as ever) died so I bought a prebuilt PC from work. $300 with a 20" Widescreen LCD. Anyways, here are the specs. AMD 64 4000+ @2.6GHz nVidia 6600GT 512MB PCI-E (I added) Generic Motherboard Patriot Signature DDR2800MHz 4096MB (I added, 1GB from factory) Emprex 20" Widescreen LCD Its a Compaq PC. Since I added the 4GB's its only reading 3.5GB's. I thought it was saving .5GB's for the video but I added the video card and nothing. Anyone know how I can make it read 4GB's? If not ill return the ram and get some DDR667 2GB Corsair XMS. Here are my other rigs. Top of the line? Nawwwww Gets the job done? Yawwwww ******** Intel Pentium III 933@980MHz w/OEM HS+80MM fan nVidia 5500 256MB Asus CUSI-FX Samsung PC133@140 512MB Rosewill 300W Compaq 17" CRT ******** AMD Athlon XP 2400+ @2.2GHz w/ Zalman CNPS7000Cu ATi X700Pro w/ Zalman VF700Cu Abit NF7-S v.2 Patriot Signature DDR400 1024MB Thermaltake 430W Samsung Syncmaster 19" 914v LCD Anyone selling a Socket A mobo btw? Thanks, Dami3n
you have a 32bit OS, yes? 32bit operating systems have a total address space of 4gb. devices such as video cards and sound cards (and cpu cache) are all memory mapped, so these detract from the total available. long story short, you need a 64bit OS to see it all.
yep thats a 32-bit OS right there! considering that he must have a AM2 motherboard due to the DDR2 memory, i bet it can address all 4GB, but the OS cant address it. 64-bit is the only way for more than 3.5GB
your talking utter noobness! he has a 6600GT 512mb PCI, so the gfx card isn't grabbing system memory.
n00b? me? not this time... No the video card isn't grabbing system memory, but the GPU Memory has addresses assigned, prior to addresses being assigned to the system RAM. For instance, I've seen quite a few cases where user has 2 x 512Mb vid cards, and can only see 3.0Gb, and where user has 768MB GT, can only see 3.25Gb. It's not exact, but it's close enough to demonstrate the principle.
=\. So if I go back to onboard (which was using 128Mb I believe), itll read 3.8GB's? Yeah, it came with a 32bit OS on a 64bit board haha. The RAM is 2x2GB if that helps. So in other words, just take the 3.5GB's as it is?
Heh, maybe in the future I guess. I barely scrunched up enough dollars to get 4GB. I may return it if my finances dont come out as hoped and get 2GB's.
nope, all device memory addresses are memory mapped to a uniform address space. it's so that the CPU can communicate with all devices with memory in exactly the same way - it simplifies and speed things up. (i would just stop trying to be right if i were you - it's funny, and i have a masters degree in computing...)
dose this occur when more than 3.25-3.5GB is installed into a machine with a 32-bit OS. for instance 4GB plus GFX of 320mb, and the address all go crazy so 3.68GB is shown?
I'd say keep the 4gb and upgrade to the 64-bit os in the future rather than sending back 2gb of the stuff your purchased. 3.5gb does easily outperform 2gb, in vista at least
Burnout, here's an explanation in all its gory complex detal. have fun! http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm
