Problems upgrading the RAM...

[Guest]

Hello,
I have kept trying with failing success to upgrade the ram on my PC to 4
gigs. I was getting 3.5 but not the four that I want. Now it has suddenly
dropped to 3.00 gigs.

The motherboard supports and recognizes the 4 gigs, yet when I install 4 it
comes up as 3 and my Pc starts rebooting intermittenly. I have done this
several times and when I installed the three 1 gig dimms and the 512meg it is
fine. Yet when I go to four 1 gig dimms it shows up as 3 gigs. Very
recently I swapped out two of the dimms so that they all match. Again No
such luck and even worse is that when I went back to the 3.5 gigs, Windows
dropped it to 3.0 gigs. Basically I have wasted $250 on two 1 gig dimms that
won't work. The really wacky part is that the motherboards CMOS registers
the 4 gigs of ram without any problem. Windows XP home has a problem.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated,
and happy holidays...

Andrew

 

[Kerry Brown]

The 32 bit versions of Windows are limited to 4 GB. The motherboard uses
some of this address space for itself. What you are seeing (other than the
rebooting) is normal. If you want to use 4 GB of RAM you will have to switch
to a 64 bit version of Windows. It's a very common question. It sometimes
pays off to use a search engine for questions like this.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=windows+xp+4+gb&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

The rebooting indicates a problem with the RAM. The new RAM is either not
compatible with your old RAM and/or the motherboard. It is possible changing
some of the settings related to timing in the BIOS may fix the problem.

 

[Paul]

The 32 bit versions of Windows are limited to 4 GB. The motherboard uses
some of this address space for itself. What you are seeing (other than
the rebooting) is normal. If you want to use 4 GB of RAM you will have
to switch to a 64 bit version of Windows. It's a very common question.
It sometimes pays off to use a search engine for questions like this.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=windows+xp+4+gb&btnG=Google+Search&meta=


The rebooting indicates a problem with the RAM. The new RAM is either
not compatible with your old RAM and/or the motherboard. It is possible
changing some of the settings related to timing in the BIOS may fix the
problem.

How much RAM shows up, when you boot the computer with a Memtest86+
test floppy ( a free download from www.memtest.org ) ?

Knowing the motherboard make and model number, the RAM make and model
number, might reveal more issues with the setup.

To verify the memory, you can use memtest86+ and test the new sticks
one at a time. Two complete passes error free, is enough for a first
test. There is a pass counter at the top of the screen. If all sticks
look good, then you can spend the extra time to test all four sticks
present in the machine at the same time. (It might take 8 hours or more
to test the full 4GB.) Due to memory bus loading, the test results will
be different with four sticks, versus one stick, so testing all four
is also an essential test.

But you can pop the memtest86+ floppy in the machine, while the four
sticks are in there, just to get a quick look at the memtest86+ screen.
Since the hard drives are not being used, you can pop the floppy and
press the reset or power button, whenever you want.

Paul

 

[Shaun]

Note: due to standard PC architecture, a certain amount of memory is
reserved for system usage, and therefor the actual memory size is less than
the stated amount.
For example, 4GB of memory size will instead be shown as 3.xxGB memory
during system startup

In short you need 64 bit windows.

 

[Shaun]

Just curious what apps are you using that need 4 gigs..?