I put 4GB RAM in my machine 4x1GB it shows up as 3.50GB should I just use 3GB 2x1GB and 2x512MB?

Question

Yes the sticks are good.
Yes BIOS shows 4x1024
Yes I have pciX16 card "no onboard graphics"
2GB shows up as 2GB
4GB shows up as 3.50GB

Yes tested each stick at a time
ALL GOOD
32bit vista home premium & XP mce

Answer 1

Thats correct, you are restricted by Windows, only 64bit OS can access more than 3GB in native mode. XP, Vista 32bit , 2000 all face same problem, as PCI devices needed workspace, so they use a reserved area of the memory map.

If you are getting 3.5GB, you are doing great already, as most of my PCs here can only see 3.2 or below, so as you suggested, I simply use 3GB and use that extra GB elsewhere

Answer 2

A 32 bit operating system only recognizes 3gb not the entire four even though the motherboard is capable of holding 4gb total. IF you switch to a 64bit OS it will recognize everything. Also once you have loaded software that will use the system memory to hold as well.

Answer 3

I know you said your sticks are good, and two gigs showed up as two gigs, but I still think you may have a bad stick. Have you tested **all four** of the gig sticks? You already tested one pair and got 2 gigs; now try the other pair and see what happens. If the second pair of sticks shows up as 1.5 gigs, test those two sticks individually to find the bad one.

Also, what OS does this machine have? Windows XP, for example, tends to have problems with knowing what to do with more than two gigs of RAM. Your Windows version could also explain why your BIOS shows 4 gigs and Windows shows 3.5 gigs.

EDIT - in response to your aditional details: Glad to know all your RAM sticks are good! The other answerers are correct: Since you have a 32-bit OS, it won't recognize all of the 4 gigs. Like Tudor said, you're kind of lucky it sees 3.5. I'd take his advice and just leave 3 gigs in the machine and find another home for the 4th stick. Wish I could give him more than one thumbs-up, he gave you a great answer.

Answer 4

Windows XP 32-bit can't (in fact all 32-bit operating systems) use more than 3.5GB of RAM. It doesn't matter how you arrange the sticks, it will always show as 3.5GB's (or less) on a 32-bit system.