Vista seeing 4g of RAM ... Bios Not.

[jdn67]

Hey guys, I'm having a bit of a problem understanding what's going on with my computer. I've spent the last few days installing Vista 64 bit and getting it all running smooth. Everythings going pretty well so far, but my only concern is that my RAM isn't showing up in my BIOS... But strangely it's showing up when I check System Information in Vista. I'm not sure what the problem is here? It's bothering me that my RAM isn't showing up in the BIOS, it's stating that I only have 3g "system memory usable size". I've never read about Vista seeing the memory and the BIOS not, and I've been looking for a while for my own answer. I would truly appreciate anyones help on this matter, I'm kind of baffled.

System specs are -

E6600 Core 2 Duo
4gb 1024-6400 5-5-5-12 Corsair DDR2
8800 GTX
ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe
Vista Ultimate 64bit

Any more info you need please ask. Maybe there's nothing wrong, but not seeing it in the BIOS has me worried even though it's showing up in Vista... Anyone know what's wrong? Thanks in advance.

 

[bobbknight]

Obtain your bios revision and contact Asus, all you may need is a bios update.

 

[jdn67]

I forgot to mention that my BIOS is completely up to date, and I updated it when I installed Vista. I'm confused as to why it's not showing up and why Vista would say I have 4gb of memory installed though? Has that ever happened to anyone here before? If anything the BIOS should be giving me the correct information, right?

 

[JonathanDeane]

Your BIOS is only 32 bit (this is just fine as really its just there to load the OS)

Nothing to see here move along lol

Hope that helps somewhat

Edit: Should also mention that MS patched the 32 bit version of Vista so that it "see's" the 4GB's but you do not actually get 4GB's (its a lie...) so unless you have a 64 bit OS, its not there either.
Hmmmm well there is PAE but thats a whole bad can of worms lol

 

[kamel5547]

@JonathanDeane Any reference for this? My understanding of bits is not that the system in question cannot "See" the memory, just that the memory cannot be addressed. This is besides the artificial limits the vendor may put in place (I forget the link, but for example XP Starter caps out at 512 MB, even though it could have a 4 GB address space).

Anyhow, as long as Windows sees it there really isn't an issue like JD said...

 

[jdn67]

I'm running the 64 bit version of Vista. That's why I've installed the 64 bit OS, because I got 4gb of RAM. Now I'm just concerned because it's only showing in the BIOS as 3GB. I've checked online and I have the current BIOS as listed on ASUS' website, and it says it's "For all OS". Is there a different BIOS I'm supposed to be using or something?

 

[th_username]

upgrade to the last bios to see if it work

 

[jdn67]

Ok maybe I misunderstood then. I'm fine as long as my Vista 64 bit is actually seeing the RAM? It's just my Bios won't recognize it? The whole BIOS saying I only have 3gb of RAM just threw me off... Vista IS recognizing it though, so that means everythings okay? Just want to be sure, was kind of getting frustrated trying to find out what was wrong. Thanks for the help though.

 

[JonathanDeane]

Yeah its pretty math heavy but here is some reading about 32bits VS 64bits (well not really math heavy but its late and my brain is tired so numbers look crazy lol)

"A 32-bit register meant that 32 to 2nd power addresses, or 4 GBs of RAM"

This means that a 32bit OS can use 4GB's of ram and it does but there is lots of overhead in what address can be used before your RAM is even mapped out. Mostly for PCI addresses BIOS uses some video RAM and on and on lol

So usually a 32bit OS with 4GB of ram installed can only use 3-3.5GB's (in some extreme cases I have heard of even less being able to be used)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit#Memory_limitations

I know its Wikki and its not the defacto end all and be all of knowledge but its not all bad either lol


Edit: The only weird thing about this whole thing is PAE wich if I understand it correctly is like memory paging, you have multiple 4GB's area's of RAM mapped and as its needed the OS and AP call them from paged RAM (Im probably botching the hell out of that one lol) I think I remember that the aplication as well as the OS has to support it for PAE to work (PAE I think stands for Physical Address Extension or something)

 

[JonathanDeane]

Ok maybe I misunderstood then. I'm fine as long as my Vista 64 bit is actually seeing the RAM? It's just my Bios won't recognize it? The whole BIOS saying I only have 3gb of RAM just threw me off... Vista IS recognizing it though, so that means everythings okay? Just want to be sure, was kind of getting frustrated trying to find out what was wrong. Thanks for the help though.

Yes your fine

The only thing I do not quite understand is how the 32 bit hand off from the BIOS kicks the CPU into 64bit mode for the OS (Im sure I could find the information and I probably will in the morning, it now fascinates me)

 

[nukemaster]

Please enter the bios and select Advanced then Chipset and make sure the option called Memory Remap Feature is enabled.

From Microsoft to use 4 gigs and up

For Windows Vista to use all 4 GB of memory on a computer that has 4 GB of memory installed, the computer must meet the following requirements:
- The chipset must support at least 8 GB of address space. Chipsets that have this capability include the following:
- Intel 975X
- Intel P965
- Intel 955X on Socket 775
- Chipsets that support AMD processors that use socket F, socket 940, socket 939, or socket AM2. These chipsets include any AMD socket and CPU combination in which the memory controller resides in the CPU.
- The CPU must support the x64 instruction set. The AMD64 CPU and the Intel EM64T CPU support this instruction set.
- The BIOS must support the memory remapping feature. The memory remapping feature allows for the segment of system memory that was previously overwritten by the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) configuration space to be remapped above the 4 GB address line. This feature must be enabled in the BIOS configuration utility on the computer. View your computer product documentation for instructions that explain how to enable this feature. Many consumer-oriented computers may not support the memory remapping feature. No standard terminology is used in documentation or in BIOS configuration utilities for this feature. Therefore, you may have to read the descriptions of the various BIOS configuration settings that are available to determine whether any of the settings enable the memory remapping feature.
- An x64 (64-bit) version of Windows Vista must be used.
Contact the computer vendor to determine whether your computer meets these requirements.

Hope this helps.