Why does windows 7 only reconize 3 4g of my 12 g of ram

[kingpin300]

Hello,
I am running windows 7 ultimate and it only reconizes 3.4 of my 12 gig of ram. My Asus board sees all 12 gig

 

[howardp6]

Which version of Windows 7 Ultimate did you install the 32 bit or 64 bit version? If you have my computer icon on your desktop double left click the icon and then left click system properties. A window will open and in the middle of the screen, it will indicate if you have the 64 bit or 32 bit version installed. The 32 bit version will only recognize about 3.4 GB and you will have to install the 64 bit version to get access to all your memory. You will have to do a clean install, since you cannot install the 64 bit version over the 32 bit version as a upgrade. Hopefully you have the installation DVDs for you OS and all programs. BNack up all your files be fore re-istalling your OS. Otherwise you may be having issues with the RAM itself.