1.25GB ram detected, but i have 1.5GB??

[frozenlead]

okay..system

AMD Athlon XP 2800+ oc mild to 2300MHz
1.5GB (3x512MB) DDR333
ATI Radeon x1650xt 512MB AGP OC
AOpen ak77-600MAX mobo
2x 400GB SATA drives
Audigy 2 zs P

problem:
i have 1.5GB of ram. Motherboard supports 3GB, 1GB per slot. Windows says i have 1.25GB. so does 3dmark. CPU-Z says i have 1.5GB. BIOS says i have ~1.31GB. why does my extra 256MB not register? i have latest bios, v1.09. i don't get it...did i miss some setting in the bios? please just tell me its some silly thing i overlooked.

 

[lewbaseball07]

are u sure theres 3 512mb sticks in there?


checck on the side of the sticks...

 

[frozenlead]

10000000099999999900000000000000000% positive all three sticks are 512MB. tested them in another similar system.

 

[lewbaseball07]

alright...thats good lol

ummmmm did you look in your bios for anything memory specious?

 

[frozenlead]

i can't find anything...idunno<Br><Br>
nice triple boot btw, i'm not a fan of ubuntu though.

 

[lewbaseball07]

tell you the truth i dont freaking use it i just like saying i have linux,xp, and vista on my computer lol

when i get a hold of an extra hdd ill install osx but......


sooo to your prob......ahh....

so u tested all three 512mb sticks altogether in another rig? or indiviually tested?

 

[rammedstein]

this may sound stupid but have you disabled you integrated graphics if your mobo has it, sometimes even after sticking in a agp/pcie card it stays turned on

 

[aztech]

well that mother board doesnt seem to have onboard video. but if your ATI Radeon x1650xt 512MB AGP OC has turbo cache thats what is using your system memory.

 

[darkstar782]

Motherboard is using a VIA KT600 chipset with a single channel DDR1 memory controller.

3 DIMMs will be unstable at DDR400 speeds. You need to run at DDR333 MAX.

Motherboard will not support 3 Double sided DIMMs either. You probably have 2 double bank and 1 single bank 512mb DIMMs there, and are loosing half of one of the 512MB DIMMs.

In short, if you want more RAM you need either 2*1GB DIMMs or a new system

 

[frozenlead]

where did you find that info? i think that's it...all the things people have mentioned above i ruled out a few days ago

 

[darkstar782]

Known and used many Athlon XP systems over the years, and never liked the nForce chipsets or saw the point in dual channel with a max FSB of 400MHz, so I have used many many KT333, KT400, KT600, and KT880 motherboards 😉

To be honest I usually stick to 2 DIMMs in them, as you have discovered 3 DIMMs is usually a hassle, either because of speed limitations or because of bank limitations.

The KT600 memory controller was only ever designed for 2 DIMMs on a single channel, hence supporting 4 banks. Motherboard makers put 3 slots on most of the boards to try to narrow the gap with the nForce 2 Ultra boards that had 4 slots / Dual channel.


EDIT:
Just re-read your original post, you say 1.31GB? This is very different from 1.25GB 😛
If it is the bank issue, you will see exactly 1280MB in BIOS or windows. Unless you are seeing 1,310,720KB? (which is 1280MB...)