P5W DH running xp will not see more than 2 gigs of ram

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dalvo

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Jul 28, 2008
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I know this is an old topic but it seems that there is no answer to it. I know I am running a 32bit operating system but I was still expecting to see more than 2 of my 4 gigs of ram. I have read some people talking about memory remapping but there is no such setting in my bios to enable. Would this help? I have tried adding PAE to my boot.ini but no luck. Am I just stuck with two gigs?

And the bigger question is why on earth is windows 7 going to be released with a 32 bit version? It is about time that windows forced companies to build software that is up to date. Or at least up to the standard that OSX is running at.
 
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dalvo

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Like I said, memory remap is not in my bios as far as I can tell. It is not in the manual. If you are using this board can you tell me what bios you are using?
 
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dalvo

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Thanks. I don't have remapping as an option. Is it safe to say then that it is turned off? Dam I wonder why on earth I am stuck at 2 gigs of ram. Should I not be getting at least 3. something gigs?

I will check that link KBits, thanks.
 
nukemaster

nukemaster

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Ok, your bios is very old.

Go here to get the latest bios for your motherboard. Please confirm P5W DH Deluxe

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5W%20DH%20Deluxe

Extract the bios file to a Floppy OR Flash card(usb drive, mp3 player, what ever). Enter the bios and go under tools to select "easy flash 2". Select your flash drive or floppy drive and the right bios file.

You may also use the AFUDOS on a floppy disk(has to be real dos like a windows 98 boot floppy or cd) with the bios file and boot off that with the command "afudos biosfile.rom"

There is a level of risk flashing a bios, if you loose power during it the board may be render unbootable. I have never had a issue with flashing, but your bios is so old I suspect it is why that feature is not there.
DO NOT FLASH FROM WINDOWS UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO BREAK THE BOARD
 
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dalvo

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Well gave that a shot and now I have a totaly dead computer. Half way through the update I guess easy flash decided to take a break and as it was wrighting the boot sector. Now when I turn on the computer it goes into this recovery cycle where it looks for the bios on a usb key or cd rom. I thought great no problem I can just do it now. But no. It fails to see the bios on my usb as well as my c.d. rom. Not sure what to do now as this is my main work computer.

Any tips.
 
nukemaster

nukemaster

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Nov 23, 2004
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I am sorry to hear your bios flash went bad, It does suck that even today things do not always work. My fingers are crossed that you can sort this out still

Rename the bios file to P5WDH.rom and burn it to a CD(if the flash drive is not working)

You see it looking for the bios file? I have never had a bad flash with any board.

If that does not work you can try to reset the cmos with the jumper above ez_raid 2. Do this with the power un plugged and after hitting the power switch once to make sure all the power is out of the system.

The last option is to contact Asus and explain your problem. Sometimes they will just send a pre programed chip, other they will ask you to buy a new(pre programed) chip.
 
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dalvo

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I am very glad to report that I got the board back! I do not know why but it simply would not read the bios that I downloaded from the Asus site. I tried it from USB key as well as the CD rom. But after searching around the forum someone said that the thing to do was use the CD that came with the board. I tried it and it read it with no problems. From there I got old bios installed and tried updating again from the CD rom. This time things worked as they should. So bottom line I am now running the newest bios and windows is now able to use about 2.7 gigs fo ram. Better than a punch in the face. All is well but it made for a very stressfull hour.

I was wondering about using a ramdisk type program to try and use the rest of the ram that windows cant see as virtual memory or some other thing. Is there anything like this out there that you know of nukemaster?
 
nukemaster

nukemaster

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If it flashes bad you have to name it P5WDH.rom. The only reason i did not mention the support CD from the board is that mine has such an old bios that it will not even see my cpu(that could make things much worse). Normally burning the new file with the changed name works.

Did you go in and make sure memory remap is off now?

Unfortunately there is no way to use that extra memory for a ram drive. A ram drive is still a part of windows and actually uses memory from the 2.7 you have access too. I would only find it useful if you have a small app that needs fast drive speed and access times. Other then that the memory is better left to windows to do with as it sees fit.

Do you have 2 or a dual video(X2 or GX2) card setup? If so that is what is taking some of your memory away. Windows has to allocate ALL the memory in the system this includes the video card memory.

Its actually a very odd process because if I take a 768MB 8800GTX and plug it into another board with XP 32-bit i get 3.25(lines up perfect). Yet just adding a 4MB pci card with it cuts the memory down to 3.0. Taking out the 8800 and leaving just the 4MB card gives 3.6 something. With the P5W all numbers are a little lower. 3.12 with the 8800GTX for example. This board has more features then the other board so uses more memory space.

unfortunately that memory is going to remain that way as long as you run a 32-bit operating system. you may try to gain some by disabling any onboard devices you do not use.

You can see your available memory in the bios as well under the main page system information(bottom option), it will tell you how much is appropriated.
 
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dalvo

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I did make sure that memory remap is turned off. I do run two video cards on this board each with 256mb ram. Who would ever think that this would cause more system ram to be used. Strange. Computers man work with them so many years and yet I keep learning new things. I look forward to installing a quad CPU on this board one day. Till them I will enjoy what I have.
 
americanbrian

americanbrian

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"I do run two video cards on this board each with 256mb ram. Who would ever think that this would cause more system ram to be used. Strange."

It doesn't. The OS can map (give an address to) a maximum of 4 Gigs of memory 2^32 Bytes (32-bit OS). System devices other than your GFX card also use memory ranges that need to be included too.

I.E. DVD-writer usually has a buffer for write protection (200MB) network cards have much smaller buffers (KB range) Your CPU core may have 8MB L2 cache, your GFX card using 2x256MB. etc. etc.

All of these things need to have an address so that the CPU can locate and use them.

See, your are not using more RAM because of the GFX card, you simply aren't able to use it because you cannot address it. no more street numbers are available to you. The house exists and remains empty because no-one can find it.

64 bit OS's can address 2^64 Bytes or 17592186044416 GB or

Exactly 16 Exabytes. I think you could fit the entire internet on that.
 
nukemaster

nukemaster

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Yes its all about addressable space, but my 4 megabyte video card takes 256 megs when added with a 8800GTX(that is on top of the 768 already there). so 8800GTX 3.25GB 8800GTX + 4 MB PCI S3 Virge 3.00GB

DVD drives buffers are much smaller 2-8 megabytes in most cases.
 
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