New 2x 2GB RAM Showing Up As 2GB Total in BIOS, Windows and Ubuntu

[Bob Bobbington]

So, I've recently bought some new RAM for my ultra budget machine. The 1.5GB of RAM it came with simply did not cut it for me (as you'd expect) so I bought 4GB of DDRII RAM (2x 2GB) from Ebay (I know, not the best place) which is showing up as 2GB in the BIOS and 4GB with only 2GB usable with the other two for system reserved. I've spent hours reading on how to fix this and no luck. I've looked at msconfig, I've looked in the BIOS for any memory options (none could be found) and I've probably done some other stuff, too (I can't quite remember, a bit tired right now). When one stick was in the machine it showed up as 1GB. The RAM before this did not have any issues like this.

The motherboard is a GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L
CPU: Dual-core Pentium E5400 @ 2.70 GHz
GPU: PNY GeForce 210 512MB
OS: 64-bit versions of Ubuntu and Windows on two seporate drives

I've ran out of ideas on how to fix this, any help?


In case you're wondering how cheap I got this thing, then here's the price:
£35 for the main PC
£10 for the RAM
Totals to £45

 

[Emerald]

do you still have the link to the ebay site for the memory?

most likely the memory is not compatible with the motherboard

 

[chris987]

your mobo may just not like your ram or you just need a bios update to enable full 4gb ram support.! anyway make sure memory remap feature is enabled

also in windows 7 msconfig in advanced options try setting manually the amount of memory to ''4096''

 

[Bob Bobbington]

do you still have the link to the ebay site for the memory?

most likely the memory is not compatible with the motherboard

The memory is compatible, I've checked at Gigabyte's website http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3485#sp

I'll see if I can find the Ebay page for you.

 

[Bob Bobbington]

your mobo may just not like your ram or you just need a bios update to enable full 4gb ram support.! anyway make sure memory remap feature is enabled

also in windows 7 msconfig in advanced options try setting manually the amount of memory to ''4096''

The BIOS doesn't appear to have a memory remap option, this seems to be the case with Gigabyte boards. I've tried to avoid updating the BIOS as I know how your system can be bricked by this process. I've looked at the msconfig and unfortunately that didn't help.

Edit: Updated BIOS to latest version, still no luck.

Edit 2: If it helps, the RAM is running in Dual-Channel Interleaved mode as reported by the BIOS on startup. The old RAM only ran in Dual-Channel mode and did not have this problem.

 

[Emerald]

do you still have the link to the ebay site for the memory?

most likely the memory is not compatible with the motherboard

The memory is compatible, I've checked at Gigabyte's website http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3485#sp

I'll see if I can find the Ebay page for you.

Check your purchasing history, the link should be in there if it is not to long ago.

 

[Bob Bobbington]

do you still have the link to the ebay site for the memory?

most likely the memory is not compatible with the motherboard

The memory is compatible, I've checked at Gigabyte's website http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3485#sp

I'll see if I can find the Ebay page for you.

Check your purchasing history, the link should be in there if it is not to long ago.

This should be it:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-4G-4GB-2X2GB-DDR2-667MHZ-PC2-5300-5300U-DIMM-MEMORY-RAM-PC-DESKTOP-240-PIN-/141388288405?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20eb661195

Should match the type of RAM mentioned on the Gigabyte website and on this page:
http://www.mrmemory.co.uk/memory-ram-upgrades/gigabyte/motherboard/ga-g31m-es2l-rev.-1.x

I did make sure that the type of RAM I bought was compatible with my mobo.