Problem getting 2 sticks of ram to work.

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Mortarious

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Jan 7, 2015
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So I have this pretty old set that I decided to upgrade.
Mobo: gigabyte 945gcm-s2l. Which uses DDR2 memory.
So I bought 2 sticks of 2GB rams.
Now when I boot, on the bios it says something around 34 and a bunch of zeros. Despite the fact that at the shops both displayed 40, 4 hundred, something.
Task manager gives me this: Physical Memory (MB)
Total: 3327
Cached: 1120
Available: around 1800-2200.
Free: depends on the above of course.
CPU-Z: displays that the Size is 4GBytes, and they work in dual channel.
I ran windows memory diagnostic on both sticks, only putting one in, and both reported no problems.
I looked into CPU-Z and both have identical stats.
I tried the method of: System Configuration>Advanced options>clear the Maximum memory.
My Bios is pretty old, and Mobo as well.
But I tried to figure out how to update the bios to no avail I'm afraid, every guide was incomplete and just did not work.
But anyway how to solve this little problem?
preferably as soon as it can be so if it's a a hardware problem or mismatched memory problem I can return them or replace them.
 
Solution
ko888
Your 32-bit operating system is limited to a 4GB address space. Since the operating system needs to communicate with the hardware devices like the motherboard, graphics card, audio device, network controller, etc. there will be address space reserved for each device. The reserved address space for each device is deducted from the 4GB total and is why you're ending up with 3.3GB available for OS and application use.

Try upgrading to a 64-bit Operating System if you want to avoid the 4GB address space limitation.
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ko888

ko888

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Your 32-bit operating system is limited to a 4GB address space. Since the operating system needs to communicate with the hardware devices like the motherboard, graphics card, audio device, network controller, etc. there will be address space reserved for each device. The reserved address space for each device is deducted from the 4GB total and is why you're ending up with 3.3GB available for OS and application use.

Try upgrading to a 64-bit Operating System if you want to avoid the 4GB address space limitation.
 
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Solution
M

Mortarious

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Jan 7, 2015
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ko888, Thanks.
I heard about something like this but always assumed that there was an option to just get my freaking ram. Anyway.
Before I had 2 sticks of 1GB rams and did not notice such a thing.
and is it not a huge amount of memory to take running basic stuff like this?
Heck, was the upgrade even worth it?
Lastly could it be any other thing or it's pretty much a fact that it's because I run a 32-bit system?
Anyway thanks again for helping me.
 
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ko888

ko888

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Two 1GB DIMMs is well below the 4GB address space maximum so you will never encounter the problem.

What is the system being used for? If your system usage wasn't causing excessive page swapping when you only had 2GB of RAM then the upgrade to 4GB of RAM wasn't worth it.
 
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Mortarious

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ko888,
The most demanding thing on it was gaming.
If you don't mind me asking.
the system reserved some memory to communicate with the hardware devices.
But did it not need to communicate before as well when it had the 2GB of ram?
 
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ko888

ko888

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Even if the same amount of memory address space was being reserved for device communication when you had 2GB of RAM it was still being deducted from a 4GB address space (i.e. from the upper 2GB of unused address space). It is not the amount of physical memory that determines the memory address space limit. If you could install only 3GB of RAM you would have full access to all 3GB.

This is your current 32-bit OS problem where you have an overlap of around 700MB of physical memory with the reserved memory address space:
4Gig-32bit.jpg


If you were to upgrade to a 64-bit OS you would have full access to all 4GB of RAM:
4Gig-64bit.jpg
 
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Mortarious

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ko888,
Thank you so much for explaining it to me, now I kind of get it.

Anyway
I got a 64-bit windows 7 installed just today.
And when checking the total ram it's still: 3327
So what is wrong?
 
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ko888

ko888

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That means your motherboard's BIOS lacks the memory hole remapping above 4GB feature. The 700MB or so of reserved memory range for hardware communication is called a memory hole. If the motherboard's BIOS has the memory remapping feature then the memory hole can be remapped to a region above the 4GB address boundary thereby giving your operating system full access to the 4GB of installed RAM. Well that's the theory if everything is implemented properly.
 
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Mortarious

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ko888,
Thanks again.
Now how to do that exactly?
I tried looking at the BIOSs options and found no option to remap.
So. Do I have to update it or it's a Mobo hardware problem?
 
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ko888

ko888

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If the motherboard manufacturer never added the feature to their BIOS then you can't upgrade the BIOS and expect the feature to be there. It's highly doubtful that GIGABYTE had the memory mapping feature in their motherboard BIOS for that model.
 
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M

Mortarious

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This is just absurd. I can't deny that my mobo is a workhorse but on 4GB of ram they are flat out lying.
Anyway.
I updated the BIOS, kept trying to run extracted files instead of putting them in the usb stick, and still nothing.
Read a bit and found that it seems that the motherboard is truly a stupid model.
I've being looking into Physical Address Extension but it only says on 32-Bit systems.
So the last, hopefully, question is this:
Is there anyway, like anything on software or BIOS or whatever, that I can do to get the full 4GB of ram?
If I switched to a 32-Bit system and tried the "Physical Address Extension", which I'm not even sure I can get to work, will I get my full 4GB?
Should I just throw the 4GB rams and keep the old 2GB ones and save myself the headache!
 
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ko888

ko888

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