Atom 330 - accessing the rest of the RAM?

[petertr2000]

I doubt anyone has thought of this..... but you never know.

I've got an Acer Revo that I use as a media centre, and its getting rather slow.

I upgraded the RAM to 4Gb a while back, but Windows 7 64bit can only use 2.75Gb of it.
This is because while the Atom 330 is a 64bit CPU, it can only address 4Gb of memory.

Annoyingly, I didn't know this when I forked out for a 4Gb memory upgrade, and found that I went from 2Gb, to 2.75Gb. Great way to spent £50!



So I was wondering, is it possible to get access to this 1.25Gb of RAM 'somehow' and turn it into say, a RAMDrive that might speed up the general running of the machine?


(Also, if anyone has ever overclocked one of these Revo 6100's please shout!)

 

[BlizzardX]

How much memory can you see in the POST screen on boot?

 

[petertr2000]

Sorry, can't tell right now - I can only remote into it as I'm at work.

Will be able to check that next week. IF I can actually see the POST screen - half the time, by the time the monitor comes to life out of its power saving mode, the POST has finished.

 

[Freddie1980]

Won't some of that memory be reserved for the video/gpu?

 

[petertr2000]

Won't some of that memory be reserved for the video/gpu?

Yes, I think 512Mb is given to the ION graphics.

32Bit usual RAM is 3.2Gb available of 4
minus 512mb, gets you to around the 2.75Gb that is being reported.

 

[joeyjojo]

Most Atom processors can only support 2 GB of system memory. It's a limitation of the CPU, nothing to do with onboard graphics.

Like this guy https://communities.intel.com/thread/4484 if you're getting more than 2 GB you shouldn't complain!

When I bought my Asus 1015PX (with Atom N570) I bought a 2 GB stick, as anything more is marked as unsupported.

I believe only Cedarview (2011) onwards support 4 GB of memory.

 

[petertr2000]

How much memory can you see in the POST screen on boot?

Checked today. 3.5Gb is shown in the BIOS, which is correct as 512Mb is reserved for the GPU.


The Atom 330 can only address 32bit memory space - so it sees the usual 3.2Gb (of 4Gb) and then subtract the 512mb for the video card - and you get 2.75Gb.

Fat lot of use buying those 2x2Gb sticks to replace the 2x1Gb eh?




Anyhooooo. Back to the original question, is there any way I could create a RAMDrive out of the "lost" memory? a 1Gb Ramdrive would be ideal imo