Unusual Vista memory problem

[kmcguire07]

Hi all, this is my first time here, as I am really stuck for a solution. I hope you all can help.
I have got 2 systems at home. Both have a Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI pro MB, pentium D 820 , Geforce 7800GT card and 4 x 1GB of RAM. Both systems have had BIOS flash (F7), and chipsets supports up to 8GB (if OS would be x64).

I installed one system with Vista Home Premium (32bit) with only 2GB installed. After install OS, downloaded and installed all updates incl SP1. Then inserted the additional 2GB. Vista on this system recognizes the 4GB installed (yes I know, while only using 3GB, you can see in msinfo32: physical installed 4GB, blabla).

The other system I installed with Vista Ultimate, SP1 included on DVD (32-bit). Also initially with only 2GB in system, and then after installation, added the other 2GB. With this system Vista only displays 3GB. When looking in msinfo32, the physical installed memory is <<not recognized>>! While BIOS detects 4GB for this sytem.

All BIOS settings are the same. I have gone through 1000nds of threads looking for a solution to this problem, and I am tired of all the "normal" 3GB/4GB issues and discussions encountered. I cannot find one single topic anywhere which seems to correspond with my situation (all others have the pre-SP1 issue or installed SP1 with over 2GB installed, or have BIOS/MB problems, or X64-X86 issues...) Somehow there seems to be a communication problem between my one MB and the Ultimate (SP1 inc), which there is not with my other MB and Home Premium (+SP1 inst afterwards). I have no memory remap option in the BIOS. I have already tried reinstalling the Ultimate PC a few times, but the issue remains. And I cannot try to undo SP1 and reinstall in the Ultimate as it is incorporated in the DVD. The drivers I have used are identicall fo the two systems.

Please, any ideas or feedback on what this could be?

 

[Zoron]

If you're installing 32-bit, don't be concerned. If you installed 64-bit and only saw 3GB, then that would be an excellent reason to bitch. I'm guessing that 32-bit Vista Business/Enterprise/Ultimate will still display the usable RAM, while Home editions will display 4GB. Main reason for the switch in the first place was to keep down angry calls from average Joe customers: "I paid for 4GB but Windows tells me I have 3GB!! What are you going to do about it?!?!?!?!".

Since businesses usually have some sort of IT staff that usually knows what they're doing, MS probably didn't see the need to make this change in their business-oriented OSes.

 

[kmcguire07]

Cheers Zoron for your point of view. I have already settled with the situation, I was just a bit worried in the beginning about a possible MB problem. But as the systems run fine without any crashes and BSODs, I don't really care to see 4 or 3 or Santas GB RAM. It's all the same in the end. Your explanantion sounds logic enough really. I thought about the option, but I just assumed they would have implemented the changes in all Vista ed.