new machine --where is the RAM

[abcd]

I got new machine...Dell P4 3.4 with 4GB RAM on it.BIOS shows 4 GB RAM

I have installed windows XP professional. When I do mycomputer properties it
shows me only 3.4 GB RAM....where is the rest RAM? Why it doesnt show the
rest RAM. Does that mean I can not use upto 4 GB RAM....

thanks

 

[Yves Leclerc]

I got new machine...Dell P4 3.4 with 4GB RAM on it.BIOS shows 4 GB RAM

I have installed windows XP professional. When I do mycomputer properties it
shows me only 3.4 GB RAM....where is the rest RAM? Why it doesnt show the
rest RAM. Does that mean I can not use upto 4 GB RAM....

thanks

It looks like your Dell is sharing the RAM with the on-board (on the
motherboard) video card.

 

[Richard in AZ]

Two reasons you most likely will not see the RAM at 4 GB.
One is the way vendors specify harddrive and RAM sizes. They take the total bytes and divide by
1,000,000,000 to get gigabytes However the computer uses 2 to the 30th power as a Gigabyte
(1,073,741,824). Hence if you had 4,000,000,000 bytes of RAM the computer would divide by its value
and come out with 3.725 Gigabytes.
Second, I suspect your video card is sharing some 3 Megabytes of the system memory and hence you get
a report of 3.4 GB available.

:I got new machine...Dell P4 3.4 with 4GB RAM on it.BIOS shows 4 GB RAM
:
: I have installed windows XP professional. When I do mycomputer properties it
: shows me only 3.4 GB RAM....where is the rest RAM? Why it doesnt show the
: rest RAM. Does that mean I can not use upto 4 GB RAM....
:
: thanks
:
:

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Two reasons you most likely will not see the RAM at 4 GB.
One is the way vendors specify harddrive and RAM sizes. They take
the total bytes and divide by 1,000,000,000 to get gigabytes However
the computer uses 2 to the 30th power as a Gigabyte (1,073,741,824).
Hence if you had 4,000,000,000 bytes of RAM the computer would divide
by its value and come out with 3.725 Gigabytes.

This is true of the way hard drive vendors report the size of their drives,
as compared to the way Windows does. But when you're dealing with RAM sizes,
it's Windows vs the RAM manufacturer (as opposed to Wndows vs the Drive
manufacturer) and there's no such issue. The RAM manufacturers report the
size in powers of 2, just as Windows does. 4GB is 4GB either way.

Second, I suspect your video card is sharing some 3 Megabytes of the
system memory and hence you get a report of 3.4 GB available.

If the issue was video sharing of RAM, it would certainly not account for
anywhere near .6GB. This is not the reason.

I don't know what the problem is, but neither of these account for it.

 

[paulmd]

I got new machine...Dell P4 3.4 with 4GB RAM on it.BIOS shows 4 GB RAM

I have installed windows XP professional. When I do mycomputer properties it
shows me only 3.4 GB RAM....where is the rest RAM? Why it doesnt show the
rest RAM. Does that mean I can not use upto 4 GB RAM....

thanks

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888137/en-us

 

[Frank]

I got new machine...Dell P4 3.4 with 4GB RAM on it.BIOS shows 4 GB
RAM
I have installed windows XP professional. When I do mycomputer
properties it shows me only 3.4 GB RAM....where is the rest RAM?
Why it doesnt show the rest RAM. Does that mean I can not use upto
4 GB RAM....
thanks

Since there are many replies that are not relevant to your question, I
would
suggest that you (google) (windows xp + 4GB RAM). There were
1,390,000 hits.