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4 GB of Ram installed but only 2.97GB usable. What gives?

I've just taken an existing XP Pro 32 bit system that had only 0.5GB of memory installed and maxed it out to 4GB.

The BIOS reports the 4GB ram however when XP is booted and I look at the computer properties only 2GB of RAM is reported. Can anyone explain this?

Before we go up any blind allys the /3GB switch is not the answer here, I have no need for a single process to use more the 2GB of memory.

I'm wondering if the the 32 bit XP Pro is deliberately limited to 2GB. I seem to remember seeing an excellent table on a Microsoft site listing all the various SKUs of Windows and what each one was limited to. However I can't seem to find that table now.

Edit: Motherboard info.

The motherboard is a Asus A8N-VM. According to the manual it will accept up to 4GB of mem.

Edit 2:

Well it would seem I've also got a similar problem as reported by this question Windows only sees 768 MB RAM out of 4 GB. In my case the PCI Bus seems to have allocated memory from 0x7800000 all the way to the top, even though the first device inside the connection is the NVidia 6100 starting a 0xD0000000. The difference is the missing 1GB or so.

I have no idea how to convince the PCI Bus to not start its allocation so early.

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AnthonyWJones
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    Take your pick http://superuser.com/questions/50138/4-gb-of-ram-installed-but-only-2-97gb-usable-what-gives-closed http://superuser.com/questions/27086/windows-xp-and-ram-3-5gb http://superuser.com/questions/7964/where-did-the-other-8-gb-of-ram-go http://superuser.com/questions/17827/using-3-gb-ram-in-vista-windows732-bit http://superuser.com/questions/54056/why-is-usable-ram-less-than-total-ram http://superuser.com/questions/27006/how-to-check-ram-size-without-looking-at-motherboard http://superuser.com/questions/76114/4gb-of-installed-ram-xp-says-3-23-gb-closed – Sathyajith Bhat May 15 '10 at 18:32
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    @Sathya: Thanks for that set but none of them address the question at hand. In fact Windows is reporting 1.93GB, I can grasp it not reporting __all__ of the 4GB but 1.93GB is a big drop from 4. – AnthonyWJones May 15 '10 at 19:15
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    Do You have a 1GB graphics card? – Nifle May 15 '10 at 23:07
  • @Anothony wrt Edit 2: check your BIOS, there should be an option to alter the mapping. A BIOS update might help. – Sathyajith Bhat May 16 '10 at 04:31
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    @Nifle: The Graphics are on board and is set to 128MB, so I'd expect to loose at least that and then some. I fully expect to loose a good 700MB of it but not 2.7GB of it as I currently seem to be. – AnthonyWJones May 16 '10 at 08:29
  • @Sathya: "After the mapping"? What "mapping"? An "option" to do what? – AnthonyWJones May 16 '10 at 08:30
  • I'd boot the system from a LIVE linux cd and see what Linux says the memory is... – djangofan Jun 25 '10 at 18:17

2 Answers2

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Check the web site of your mainboard manufacturer, some chipsets have hard limits, specially if they are old.

Another possibility (unlikely however for a system that was originally 512Mb) is a graphic card with too much memory.

Have also a look at this : Windows only sees 768 MB RAM out of 4 GB

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Michel
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This page says 4GB, so it's probably not the SKU.

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
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  • Thanks that was the table I was looking for. I was kinda hoping that it would be the answer. So I'm still no wiser to why I'm not seeing memory closer the 4GB being reported. – AnthonyWJones May 15 '10 at 19:17