System only recognizes 3.25 GB RAM, but I have Windows 7, 64-bit

[jbr613]

I have 4 GB of RAM installed on an MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (PCB 1.0) motherboard, but my system only recognizes 3.25 GB. I'm well aware of the limitation that 32-bit systems have in recognizing memory, but I'm running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Jon

 

[saint19]

Hi newcomer and welcome to the Tom's hardware forum.

That GPU do you have? or it's onboard video

 

[jbr613]

The response I got from MSI was "this is normal due to the limitation on the Nvidia chipset."
I have Nvidia nForce4 Ultra. Is there no way around this?

 

[saint19]

Does have the mobo onboard video? or what graphic card do you have installed on the mobo.

 

[jbr613]

Radeon X700. (Obviously use it for apps rather than gaming.)

 

[saint19]

Ok. Radeon X700= 256MB + 750MB (4GB-3.25GB) = 1GB video for your Win 7. WIn 7 recognize the 4GB, but add 750MB to the 256MB of your GPU to get a 1GB for video.

 

[jbr613]

Much obliged. Time to upgrade!

 

[jbr613]

Best answer selected by jbr613.

 

[tcsenter]

Ok. Radeon X700= 256MB + 750MB (4GB-3.25GB) = 1GB video for your Win 7. WIn 7 recognize the 4GB, but add 750MB to the 256MB of your GPU to get a 1GB for video.

Umm...what? He has 256MB graphics card. The other memory address ranges are reserved to the rest of the system devices; storage controllers, PCI bus and PCI Express controllers, audio, LAN, chipset DMI or interconnect, etc.

 

[megamanx00]

^ Windows is basically reserving 750MB for the old X700.

 

[tcsenter]

Really? So what is being reserved to the rest of the system devices; storage controllers, PCI bus and PCI Express controllers, audio, LAN, chipset DMI or interconnect, ACPI BIOS, etc.

It can't be nothing or the system wouldn't function.

 

[saint19]

^The other 3.25GB of the system manage the devices that you say. You can see the spoolsv.exe on the task manager, some of this "unknow" process are the controllers of the devices and if you try finish them, you can see that the system don't let you.

 

[tcsenter]

Sorry. That's not how it works.

The addresses reserved for all other system devices would never be exposed to the system. i.e. the OS would never see that memory

256MB is reserved to your graphics card. The remaining lost memory is reserved to all other system devices. You can confirm this by looking at the memory address ranges reserved to each device in the system.

 

[saint19]

256MB is the dedicated memory of the GPU.

 

[tcsenter]

Yes. We've established that already.