My friend & I is having some problems with our ram.
We both have 4 gb, he's laptop shows 2.54gb ram availible. (Under System information)
And mine shows the same amount, sometimes.

What can course this?



I'm running Vista Ultimate x64, and he's running Vista Home Premium x86.

[A little side question.
When a motherboard supports Dual Channel ram, does the ram have to be dual channel for it to run DC?
And (if I have 2 ram dimms) do I put 1 in DIMM A1 and one in A2, or A1 and B1 ?]

Any windows 32-bit OS doesn't recognize any amount of RAM higher than 3GB.

Originally Posted by AlX

Any windows 32-bit OS doesn't recognize any amount of RAM higher than 3GB.

Why does it show it at my computer sometimes then?

Originally Posted by bogmaerke

[A little side question.
When a motherboard supports Dual Channel ram, does the ram have to be dual channel for it to run DC?
And (if I have 2 ram dimms) do I put 1 in DIMM A1 and one in A2, or A1 and B1 ?]

its not the ram chips but the motherboard thats dual channel , you are however better off buying a "matched pair" of ram modules for dual channel , and on rare occations some mobos memory controllers have problems with certain types of ram in dual channel so be carefull.

as for the second part it depends on your mobo , you'll have to look it up in your instruction book , most new boards are colour coded but generally if for example in order from left to right you had.........

A1 A2 B1 B2 for dual channel with 2 sticks you would go A1 B1 , you can also fill all four and still be dual channel

if you get it wrong it it will still boot , just not in dual channel mode

yuor momo manual will tell you how to do it

Originally Posted by whs

Originally Posted by bogmaerke

Originally Posted by AlX

Any windows 32-bit OS doesn't recognize any amount of RAM higher than 3GB.

Why does it show it at my computer sometimes then?

In a 32bit system, the 4GBs can be anything from 2.5 to 3.5GBs available. That depends on the other users of the address space. See here for some more details ( Reader Question: Maximum Memory in 32-bit Windows Vista - Windows Vista help ).
You get the best picture of your actual situation when you look into Task Manager > Performance tab. It shows you Total (available) - which is 3325MBs of my 4GBs of RAM, and it shows you the "Free" which is not used for anything (caching, etc.)

he has 64 bit Vista

Originally Posted by whs

Originally Posted by bogmaerke

Originally Posted by AlX

Any windows 32-bit OS doesn't recognize any amount of RAM higher than 3GB.

Why does it show it at my computer sometimes then?

In a 32bit system, the 4GBs can be anything from 2.5 to 3.5GBs available. That depends on the other users of the address space. See here for some more details ( Reader Question: Maximum Memory in 32-bit Windows Vista - Windows Vista help ).
You get the best picture of your actual situation when you look into Task Manager > Performance tab. It shows you Total (available) - which is 3325MBs of my 4GBs of RAM, and it shows you the "Free" which is not used for anything (caching, etc.)

2494 MB.

what motherboard do you have?

what memory configuration?

does it sometimes show all your memory?

if you right click computer and select properties.........is that where your looking?

Originally Posted by archie123

what motherboard do you have?

what memory configuration?

does it sometimes show all your memory?

if you right click computer and select properties.........is that where your looking?

Asus P5B-VM

Don't know what configuration?

Under computer->properties it shows Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB
And sometimes Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB (2.5 GB availible)

i meant do you have 4 x 1gb sticks or 2 x 2gb sticks that sort of thing incase its an issue there with your mobo and bios perhaps

if it always shows 4gb of ram im assuming its all fine , you may check it half way through its cacheing process sometimes which is why it shows an erroneous ammout of free ram , i think its all good