SOLVED Asrock x79 Extreme4 & XP: only 2.69GiB out of 8GiB?

[magellan]

This is something I only recently noticed. On my previous build, a Gigabyte ep45t-UD3LR
using the same, exact memory (G-skill ripjaws F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL) my Windoze XP install had nearly 3.5GiB of physical memory available, now w/my Asrock X79 Extreme4 I only have 2.69GiB available (according to my computer --> properties as well as dxdiag). What gives?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Do all 8GB show in the BIOS?

Can you install Windows 7 64-bit and see if it shows up?

 

[wagex]

do u use onboard video?
and do you use 64 bit xp?

 

[EarthDog]

I think that kit is 4GB total...?

32bit OS's can only 'see' 4GB and around 3-3.4GB are useable in most cases. A 64bit OS will allow you to see and use all of your ram.

If you upgraded your system and it has an onboard GPU, that could be where some of it is allocated.

 

[Lt_Horn]

I think that kit is 4GB total...?

32bit OS's can only 'see' 4GB and around 3-3.4GB are useable in most cases. A 64bit OS will allow you to see and use all of your ram.

If you upgraded your system and it has an onboard GPU, that could be where some of it is allocated.

2nded 32 bit OSs only can allocate 3.7 GB of ram there isnt enough space to allocate more. And as he said that if it ever shows below that then it is because of shared memory for onboard graphics.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I think that kit is 4GB total...?

32bit OS's can only 'see' 4GB and around 3-3.4GB are useable in most cases. A 64bit OS will allow you to see and use all of your ram.

If you upgraded your system and it has an onboard GPU, that could be where some of it is allocated.

Yeah, its a 2x2GB.

 

[wagex]

im guessing he has two of those kits. because he said he ad 8gb.

my suggestion to the OP is to get a 64 bit OS preferably not XP as it is buggy.

 

[magellan]

Do all 8GB show in the BIOS?

Can you install Windows 7 64-bit and see if it shows up?

Windows 7 64-bit shows all 8 GiB as installed, as does the BIOS, as does memtest. I've tested the RAM for 6 hours w/memtest and no errors.

I just don't get why XP SP3 is unable to see almost a gig of memory.

I wonder if it has anything to do w/Asrock's Xfast RAM (which creates a RAM disk out of the unusable memory in XP 32-bit)?

 

[magellan]

do u use onboard video?
and do you use 64 bit xp?

No onboard video. I keep forgetting to update my system
specs, which I'll do now.

 

[magellan]

The reason is all down to Asrock's Xfast RAM, which is supposed to use the RAM unusable by windows XP 32-bit as a RAM disk for the pagefile and any temp files (incl. browser caches). It's using 5392MiB,
which is why I now have less than 3GiB of RAM available to XP. I'm going to have to see if there's a way to limit the amount of RAM Xfast uses.