Asus V1Jp RAM question

Trying to breathe a little more life into my ASUS V1Jp, I purchased 2x2GB DDR2 PC2-5300 RAM modules from Crucial. But, not everything is going well. Here are my issues:

1. The BIOS is only posting 2.87GB RAM. The V1Jp uses the 945PM Chipset which, according to Intel, should be able to handle up to 4GB RAM. So, why isn't the motherboard seeing all 4GB? I am using the latest BiOS available for the V1Jp (version 313.)

2. I'm running Windows 7 32-bit on my laptop. It sees all 4GB of RAM but, not surprisingly, only uses 2.87GB, the same amount posted in BiOS.

I realize that even under the best of circumstances, with this chipset and OS, I won't have all 4GB available. But, I was under the impression that I would only lose about 0.5 GB.

The thing that is most disappointing is that the motherboard is reporting such a low amount of available RAM.

Any help and guidance would be appreciate.

 

Have you tested your laptop with another 2x2GB pair? Something might be broken. I would recommend you to borrow another pair from your friends and quickly test whether your bios still reports the same amount or not.


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Thank you, ramgen. Unfortunately, I don't have another 2GB pair; nor do I have anyone I can borrow two sticks from.

 

Good Idea ramgen, I would try booting with only 1 stick of RAM and verify that 2 GIG is seen in BIOS and windows.
Then remove that stick, put in the other and see what is reported.
I know people have reported similar isses with the G73 and this has helped isolate the issue.

 

ramgen, JOSEA...ya, I ran the modules individually and they both post 2GB. so it seems like the modules are working fine. it's only when they're assembled together that the problem occurs. ASUS' latest BIOS for this laptop is 313, going back to 2007. At least that's what's available on their website. Does anyone know if there's a more recent BIOS that I'm not aware of?

 

A bit of a late reply, but yeah, no BIOS update. 2844MB is as much as you're going to get without memory remapping support. This is because the 3-4GB range overlaps with ranges occupied by PCI-Express mapping.

For that function to work, you need OS support (check), chipset support (EDIT: nope) and BIOS support (*bzzt*, no support). Next to impossible without knowing the insides of the system.

 

Intel specs might be incorrect or they were talking about 1st slot supported double sided RAM up to 2GB and 2nd/3rd slot with single sided RAM up to 1GB per slot but obviously non of the mobile 945PM mainboards uses 3 RAM slots.

According to our test in the past, non of 945PM (Intel Napa platform) laptops can support 4GB of RAM, only the desktop version of 945 chipset can support up to 4GB of RAM.

The first mobile chipset supports 4GB of RAM is the PM965 Santa Rosa Platform.