1.5 gigs in bios windows showing only 1 gig?

[angrysquirrel]

I have an Asrock 939SLI32-ESATA2 motherboard. The board is an AMI
Bios revision v. 02.58.

I have 2 sticks of Crucial Micron DDR 400 512mb memory installed.
Model: CT6464Z40B.16T Cas level 3. Micron part number -
MT16VDDT6464AG-40BC4 PC3200U-30331-B1.

I also have one stick of Ultra 30215 512mb DDR ram.

I am running Windows XP with service pack 2.

The board has 4 memory banks, two of which are populated with the two
sticks of 512mb ddr 400 ram.

The problem is this. When I install the Ultra 30215 DDR ram, the bios recognizes that I now have 1536mb of RAM.

However, when I exit the bios and the computer starts its' memory test
it is only showing 1024 MB available. When I go into windows it also
only shows 1024mb. Basically, I am 512mb short when I use the Ultra ram.

I contacted Asrock support and they told me that the micron memory and ultra memory are incompatible with each other. That is why I am only seeing the one gig.

I contacted Ultra memory. They had me run CPUZ. Under the memory section of CPUZ, it shows that I have 1536mb of RAM.

The rep told me that based upon what CPUZ is reporting, windows is using all this RAM for programs . How can I tell if he is correct?

 

[darkcow]

open up task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and then go to Performance.

you'll see a box that says "Physical Memory (K)" then "Total - (a bunch of numbers here)

tell me those numbers

 

[angrysquirrel]

thanks for the response

Physical:
Total is 1047794
available 687148
system cache 435008

total:116412
kernal: 55364
nonpaged 61004

commit charge:
total: 407996
limit: 5660440
peak 1430088

 

[darkcow]

if you google your total and convert it into megabytes.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...cd=1&q=1047794+kilobytes+in+megabytes&spell=1



then it pretty much says you've got 1024 megabytes of ram. i don't think Microsoft likes your extra ram. and as a result. its not using it. they're might be a way to change around some registry keys or something. but i honestly have no clue.

 

[shadowdr]

Some bios have an E.S,C.D. function. It saves a configuration file of your hardware for windows to use when bootin. Resetting this will allow your bios to write a new one.

 

[angrysquirrel]

How do I reset this? Do I hard reset the bios with all the memory present inside?

 

[shadowdr]

After reviewing your manual online I see that the AMI bios no longer carries this feature. Have you tried other programs to see if ram is detected like Sandra or Everest? It is unusual that ram will not show up, it generaly works, blue screens or causes errors. Have you tried the single stick by itself and then add the others?

 

[soulfly1448]

Start -> Run -> type msconfig press enter. Click on the "BOOT.INI" tab then the "Advanced Options" button. The first setting is "/MAXMEM=". Make sure that the text box to the right of it is empty.

Windows may be setting the maximum memory for your computer a 1024MB. If you see that in the text box, delete it or type in 1536.

 

[petteyg359]

Do you have integrated graphics? If so, maybe they're set to use 512MB?
Or if you have Dual Channel forced on somehow (don't know if that's possible), it'll only use the matched pair. It would have to be off to use 3 sticks.

 

[ziggo0]

Chances are it isn't Windows. I have this problem with mixed sticks of generic PC2100 in all flavors of sizes. Try re-arranging the sticks of RAM in their slots. In some configurations with an Abit SA7, I can only get 512mb to appear, with a 512 & 2x256, but if I change them around, I get 768, then more switching around, it finally recognizes all 1gb of it.