How to Make Windows Xp Recognize 4gb Ram

• #1

Hello,

You might have seen a number of post from me other the last couple of days as I have been struggling with building my new pc

Anyway, my PC is now running fine and I have installed more or less the programs I need.

Now I have just one "problem" left, I have put in 4*1 Gb of RAM in my computer and in the boot up sequence it all shows up.
But in Windows I can only see 2 Gb?
I have never had the opportunity before to have this much RAM in one computer.
So I dont know if there is anything I need to do to get Windows to recognise RAM above 2 gb (I am thinking of the 2 gb limit per process, which is obviously not the same thing but got me thinking) or if this is caused by a real problem.

I ran memtest-86 and everything came up OK.

Sorry for being such a n00b

• #3

Sorry forgot to add that.
My motherboard is a 939Dual-SATA2 (bios version 1.50)
Processor AMD X2 4400+
2 * Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 DDR-DIMM 2048MB

And the version of Windows is Windows XP Professional SP2

• #4

Maybe its ur CPU or mobo that doesn't recognize that much RAM. Does it show up when it POSTs? If not chances are that ur CPU or mobo is not recognizing the RAM. I personally think it the mobo.

• #5

Can WinXP handle more than 2GB of RAM? Is it like Win98 that can work with 512MB max?

I found a bit of info about the max. Windows can give to an app and it is 2GB. you can add the option /3GB /USERVA=2700 to your boot.ini file to give 3GB. I don't know if it's your problem or not tho.

• #6

This is the strange thing, in post it shows up correctly as 4 GB.

Memtest recognise it as 4 gb

But in windows it says 2 gb....very strange

• #7

And if, like I told in my last post, you add /3GB to your boot.ini file, does it see 3GB?

• #8

Hi, i tried the pae setting but that didnt make any difference. Which is not so surprising.

I had the suggestion from one guy to look in msconfig and make sure the /maxmem setting wasnt set to a value.

It wasnt but the highest value I can set it to from within Windows is 2048, which is exactly what I am seeing.
But I guess that could just because that is the "available" amount of memory to Windows
Or should I go in and manually add a line to boot.ini with /maxmem=4096 ??

• #9

OK,

Now this problem is starting to really drive me mad.

If I run msinfo32, it says that my total physical memory in the machine is 4096 Mb so it clearly "knows" it is there but Total available is 1,66 Gb.

I found this article on MS webpage, so I shouldnt expect to see all 4 gb. But there is still something weird going on as I should see 3 gb at least
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888137/en-us

• #10

It's a feature in 32-bit XP.

XP x64 would display it fine.

• #11

Yes, but if I understand the article correctly I should still see at least 2,7 gb not 2 gb, correct?

• #12

Hi

Just to let you all know, that I reported this problem to Asus and after a lot of emails back and forth it turns out it was a bios defect. So they sent me a fix which resolved the issue

• #14

Obscura, this is not the same problem. At least it doesnt sound like it.

If you read through the thread you will see the answer to your question is here
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888137/en-us

If I have misunderstood you problem my apologies, but yours basically sounds like the Windows XP 32 reporting of memory problem, which is just a display issue.

If you see exactly 2 gb, then you have the same problem we had which has been resolved by a bios service fix. This service fix isnt public yet

Cheers
Jon

• #20

My sysytem only recognized a little over 3G until I upgrade to xp 64, now it recognizes all 8

• #23

Hi,
Follow Mictlantecuhtli's and supersmashbrada advise.

Cheers
Robin

How to Make Windows Xp Recognize 4gb Ram

Source: https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/4-gb-of-ram-is-only-showing-up-as-2-gb-in-windows-xp.40420/

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