RAM and hardware problem....?

Question

....i have just brought 4gb's of ram their all the same type and compatable with my motherboard but everytime start the computer and i check it in system properties it says i only got 3120mbs(Gb's) instead 4gbs, then i tested it by loading a game and when i start playing the game my whole computer will re-start. i take one 1gb off and left 3gb and it still the the same, i can only use 2gb for the whole system to work properly with out restarting. i think it might be vista thats doing that (since vista is uncompatable with alot of software and hardware) and even when i tried to check the peformance score it gives me a crappy score of 1! and my computer specs are gpu - 8800 gtx ultra, psu 700w, 2 gb's (4gb's if it didnt restart the computer) intel dual core 3.00ghz, hhd sata2 1tb and 120gb's pata drive... any ideas would be helpful (i might go back to windows xp till vista fix alot of problems they've got with software and hardware).

Answer 1

I think you're right; I believe Vista only recognises 3gb as a maximum. Personally, I prefer XP, far more reliable so far . . .

Answer 2

Hello,

(ANS) As an experienced computer user this problem sounds to me like a system bios problem. Meaning, that you need to check your machines system bios. Re-boot your system and before the MS Windows logo appears hit the "del" key unless it actually tells you which key to press to access the bios settings. Sometimes F2 is used here, its usually one these anyway.

**NOTE: No.1 your machines system bios (motherboard) must support the specific type of RAM chips you have used in your upgrade. No.2 the chips must be of the correct speed in nano seconds or hrtz. No.3 RAM chips usually must be upgraded using matching pairs, in other words you cannot mix and match RAM chips (nor Dimms & Simms, they must be precisely the same as the RAM the machine came with or that is recommended by the MB makers).

**You may have to adjust the settings within the BIOS to see the extra RAM size, if it doesn't auto-detect the extra RAM.

**There is no point in installing more than 3Gigs of RAM (x1 GB is utterly wasted) why? because windows Vista cannot use more than 3GB anyway.

**Frankly, Windows Vista is dreadful in my opinion. As a windows veteran user of many years (I have installed & used every version of windows since it was invented, from version 3.1 upwards). I would suggest to you that windows XP Pro is quite probably the best version of windows ever. XP has the balance of the right amount of system features & functions, a good quality user interface (GUI), it is still reasonably intuitive to use, XP can be tuned & tweaked to gain high quality system performance.

Vista is like an over stuffed donut, it has a MASSIVE foot print, gobbles massive hard disk space, gobbles vast amounts of RAM just to perform basic functions, has a huge amount of dreadful eye candy which makes it look more like a childs toy than a serious operating system?, many of the most useful features from XP have been removed or moved 3-4 menu layers down which makes them hard if not impossible to find when you want them. Vista is counter intuitive to serious users, Vista requires totally new massive hardware just to install & run it.

**NO!! don't expect Vista to run well on previous XP hardware as it wont cut the mustard. You'll be disappointed as I was.

**Vista it has many problems, has numerous security vulnerabilities despite what MS claim, vista is NOT as secure as XP.

Good luck , Kind Regards Ivan

Answer 3

It will not really tell you the exact amount of your RAM, sometimes it is decreases by a bit of like we youe have 4 ghz then it should read 3.85 ghz.
Is you Vista licensed?
Try to look for the fan, might be too slow for that fast RAM you have, sometimes it is the main core problem why RAM is not displaying at least correct RAM.
Try to go to CMOS and check if RAM displays the correct ammount.

Answer 4

This is not down to the vista(only) its down x86 and 32 bit os's not being able to access higher areas of memory, above this.

If you want the full 4Gb available buy Vista 64 bit.

Answer 5

OR it might not be Vista at all. One of your RAM sticks might be causing the restart, better run memtest to find out which one could be causing the problem so you could claim warranty soonest.