ga-ma770-ds3 where's the rest of my mem?

username007

Distinguished
Dec 8, 2008
1
0
18,510
Got a ga-ma770-ds3 revision 2.0, with 4GB of ddr2 and windows xp with all updates. Bios sees 4GB, Windows sees 3.25GB (rt click My Computer -> properties) Wheres the rest of my mem? thanks

Edited to add: NEVERMIND!!!! A little searching tells me that this is a limitation of Winxp, not the mobo. Sigh.
 

woshitudou

Distinguished
Oct 11, 2006
302
0
18,790
If I got a bit for every time someone asked where their memory went I'd have a doubleword this week.

I'm going to email all the computer hardware sales sites in the world and ask them to stop selling people 4GB of ram.
 

bilbat

Splendid
I don't get the whole complaint... Lots of MOBO hardware and added card hardware (GPUs especially) HAS to have memory mapped registers to allow both BIOS and OS (drivers especially) access, and two to the thirty-second is four Gb - THAT's IT! There is NO PHYSICAL WAY for a CPU using thirty-two address lines to access ANYTHING beyond that four gig - therefore, the hardware HAS to be 'mapped' inside it, obviating use of that memory. The ONLY cure is a sixty-four bit OS - it's physically inescapable, like complaining about gravity!
 

tcsenter

Distinguished
Jun 18, 2008
448
2
18,815
Well there is 36-bit PAE, which works fairly well with almost no performance penalty up to at least 8GB, and is supported by every Intel and AMD x86 processor in the past 10 years (though the Northbridge must still support decoding more than 4GB DRAM). Microsoft's 32-bit server SKUs support it.