memory not regeristing it's full capacity

[keflin]

Hello and thanks for reading my thread.
I am running an ASRock 939 Dual - VSTA Motherboard with 4x DDR DIMM slots with dual channel DDR memory technology.
For the last couple of years I have had 2x400MHz Kingston 1G memory sticks fitted in the two blue banks which have been regeristing as 2G in systems on my computer control panel.
Yesterday I bought 2 new A-DATA 400MHz 1G memory sticks and fitted them into the two black memory banks but it is only showing up in my system as running at 3.18G instead of 4G.
So I took them all out and put them all back in one at a time to check if one of the new sticks was damaged but they were all regeristing O,K and showing 1G each in my system.
It seems to register them all O,K until I put that last one in.
ie. 1 stick 1G, 2 sticks 2G, 3 sticks 3G and then every time I put the last stick in it only shows up as 3.18G, no matter if I use the A-DATA as the last one or the Kingston as the last one.
I am keeping them in pairs.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Kevin.

 

[maddness]

you need a 64 bit o/s, win xp 64 or vista 64

any 32 bit o/s will only read ~ 3.2Gb out of the 4gb

 

[Acid_death69]

yerr i have the same problem, i have 4 GB of OCZ and it will only register 3.2GB just something you gotta live with until you get a 64 bit os.
3 GB is still a lot and will run most things very well.

 

[helmutcheese]

JESUS, 1st Welcome, but do you need to type in massive Fonts and ask a question that gets asked 10x per week (SEARCH works wonders).

 

[Fire Wizard]

Hello keflin and welcome to the forums. First of all, if you could make your following posts in normal standard font that will be great since it is slightly easier to read. Now, as helmutcheese has already said, this sort of question is asked quite frequently. However, you are a new member so I wouldn't worry about it to much.

Now, with regards to answering your question. If you are using a 32-bit operating system which has an addressing range of 4GB, because devices such as your graphics card need to me mapped into the same addressing range to that of your physical memory, the amount of memory you will be able to utilise will be less than 4GB. If you would like a full explanation of the above, then you may be interested in this thread here. You will need to be using a 64-bit operating system to be able to address all of the 4GB of memory that you have installed

Now, if you are using a 64-bit operating system then you may have to go into the BIOS and enable a setting called "Memory Remapping".

 

[jbloggs]

This may help....(although this is specifically for Vista, it holds true for XP etc, as 32 bit OSs).

 

[Dogoid]

64 BIT O.S Y'ALL LOLZ

 

[keflin]

Thanks for all the help, sorry about the large fonts, I did'nt realise that they were that big as they do not show up large on my computer.
Thanks again.

 

[Tetras]

64 BIT O.S Y'ALL LOLZ

ie. 1 stick 1G, 2 sticks 2G, 3 sticks 3G and then every time I put the last stick in it only shows up as 3.18G, no matter if I use the A-DATA as the last one or the Kingston as the last one.
I am keeping them in pairs.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Kevin.

I wouldn't worry about it, 4GB in a 32-bit OS is still as much as you'll need (assuming you are a gamer).