Newly installed memory

[Lynne]

I had 1GB of ram installed on my Vista machine with the Asus M2N32-SLI
Deluxe motherboard (2x512) and installed two 1GB DIMMs today for a total of
3GB. Unfortunately the BIOS sees 3072MB installed and 2047MB usable and of
course Vista is only seeing the 2 gigs. How exactly do I get the BIOS to
recognize the whole enchilada? By the way, I got the chips from Crucial and
their memory scanner sees all three gigs. ?????

Thanks

 

[Brett I. Holcomb]

Check the knowledge base for articles on this. In short, the system
sees all 3 gigs but uses some of it for hardware, etc. so you don't
get the whole 3 gig for programs.

 

[Lynne]

So you are saying the BIOS is seeing all the RAM and is reporting only 2 GB
available, but it may be using the other 1 GB for installed hardware? I can
live with that, I guess. I can already see a performance improvement so I
guess I can't complain.

 

[Bob J]

Does your graphics card have integrated RAM or does it have it's own RAM, if
integrated part of installed RAM is being utilized by graphics and other
devices.

--
Regards
Bob J
If advise given from anyone, solves problem or not, or if solved from
another source,post back & let us know.
Then we all benefit.

 

[Lynne]

Does your graphics card have integrated RAM or does it have it's own RAM, if
integrated part of installed RAM is being utilized by graphics and other
devices.

No, my graphics cards have their own ram. Must be the other devices, I
guess.

 

[Dustin Harper]

Windows 32 bit has a 4 GB limit, and should show all 3 GB of RAM. Try this:

Go to start, type 'msconfig' and press enter (without the ''s). Click on
'Boot', then 'Advanced Options'. In there, see if 'Maximum Memory' is
checked. If it is, uncheck it. That will fix it so that Vista will see
all 3 GB of your memory.

 

[Lynne]

I tried that just now. The box is not checked and when I did try to check it
it wouldn't go past the 2048 MB limit. As I said, in my BIOS, it shows 3072
installed and 2047 usable. The trick is probably to figure out how to get
the BIOS to recognize the whole thing as usable. But I don't really know how
to do that.

 

[Lynne]

I tried this and it made no difference. In the BIOS it still says 3072
installed and 2047 usable and Vista is still reporting 2048.

 

[Lynne]

A very odd thing happened today. Because of it I can now see all my RAM. I
changed a couple of settings for RAM in my BIOS and when I tried to
reboot -- I couldn't. No beeps. No nothing. I had to take out the battery
and reset the CMOS. After I reset the time in the BIOS and reset the whole
thing to defaults, all the RAM showed up. It also shows up in Vista. As I
said, very weird, but now I can stop worrying about why it wasn't
recognized.

Thanks to all who responded to my original post.