RAM not posting correctly in BIOS?

[Jie]

Heyas,

Just curious if anyone could give me some reasons why the correct amount of RAM would not show up in a BIOS.

I'm running 4GBs of Dual Channel G.Skill DDR2 800 (4-4-4-12) in an Abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD. The BIOS was showing 3.9GBs and Windows Vista 32-bit was showing 3.25GBs. The BIOS is now showing 3.6GBs and Windows Vista 32-bit is showing 3GBs. I know that Vista 32-bit does not show 4GBs +.

Both kits have passed 14 passes of Memtest.

I have the latest BIOS installed. There isn't an update from Abit yet...

Thanks!

Specs in sig.

 

[prong]

Me again. The amount of system RAM showing in your BIOS is dependent on the individual components you have installed on the system. So, the answer is...the number can vary from system to system dependent on what exactly the sytem's BIOS is supporting. HTH.

 

[Jie]

Heya prong,

Thanks for the reply. I actually figured out why it was posting different numbers. I had just installed a Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer sound card that didn't seem to be functioning properly. I unistalled it and the BIOS registered the correct amount of RAM. I guess tehre was a conflict. I spoke to Abit and they said they are still working on a BIOS update. I'm assuming it will adress stuff like this....among other things.

 

[Mondoman]

What prong's referring to is the 4GB addressing limit of 32-bit Windows XP and 32-bit Vista. Since some of the 4GB of possible addresses are used up by hardware components, less than 4GB are left to assign to your RAM. Somewhere in the 3.0 GB to 3.5GB range is pretty typical -- if you want to be able to use the full 4GB, you'll have to go to 64-bit Vista.

 

[prong]

Yeah, I was not as clear as I intended to be. Thanks for the great explanation.