XPS M1210 woes with 4GB of Memory

Well today I purchased a 4GB memory kit only to find out that the OS sees only 3.25 gb... before you guys attack me let me tell u I tried to install Vista 64 bit and it still read 3.25gb.. i tried windows xp pro 64 bit and the same thing. upon further research I find out that the issue is with the motherboard chipset that they use (Dell) with the xps m1210... Apparantly the chipset will not let you address the memory. In the bios you can see 4gb but it also says that some won't be available. My buddy who just got the XPS M1330 took my same ram put it in his system and the os which is 32bit vista recognizes the entire 4gb. I read on Microsoft's website that they are aware of the chipset issue but there is no fix. My issue is I just got my XPS M1210 last month I am 4 days outside of the return period so I can't get my money back what do I do... Any suggestions would be greatly apprecaited.

something told me to cancel the order and wait for the m1210 the messed up thing is that when you order the xps m1210 they give you the option of getting 4gb knowing darn well that you won't be able to use it.. this is very deceptive...when i tried to plead with customer service to take the laptop back they told me that all they can do is offer me a 15 to 20 percent discount coupon on a new laptop. I already get a discount via the Army (employee purchase program) I won't be buying anything else from dell

 

Well, you could sell one of your 2 GiB dimms, buy a 1 GiB replacement, pocket the difference, and settle for 3 GiB RAM. Otherwise, you're hitting the RAM limitation of the chipset. There really isn't a fix, nor will the be one in the future.

 

Thanks for the great news I didn't expect my 1330 to see all 4 gigs

 

something told me to cancel the order and wait for the m1210 the messed up thing is that when you order the xps m1210 they give you the option of getting 4gb knowing darn well that you won't be able to use it.. this is very deceptive...when i tried to plead with customer service to take the laptop back they told me that all they can do is offer me a 15 to 20 percent discount coupon on a new laptop. I already get a discount via the Army (employee purchase program) I won't be buying anything else from dell

 

the XPS M1330, running on Vista x32 can use 4GB of ram? are you certian?

 

Yes I am sure.... Had it in my hands today as my buddy was showing off his sleek new system compared to my xpsm1210 i was so angry at dell.

this is a quote from the MS site

"WORKAROUND
For Windows Vista to use all 4 GB of memory on a computer that has 4 GB of memory installed, the computer must meet the following requirements:
• The chipset must support at least 8 GB of address space. Chipsets that have this capability include the following:
• Intel 975X
• Intel P965
• Intel 955X on Socket 775
• Chipsets that support AMD processors that use socket F, socket 940, socket 939, or socket AM2. These chipsets include any AMD socket and CPU combination in which the memory controller resides in the CPU.
• The CPU must support the x64 instruction set. The AMD64 CPU and the Intel EM64T CPU support this instruction set.
• The BIOS must support the memory remapping feature. The memory remapping feature allows for the segment of system memory that was previously overwritten by the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) configuration space to be remapped above the 4 GB address line. This feature must be enabled in the BIOS configuration utility on the computer. View your computer product documentation for instructions that explain how to enable this feature. Many consumer-oriented computers may not support the memory remapping feature. No standard terminology is used in documentation or in BIOS configuration utilities for this feature. Therefore, you may have to read the descriptions of the various BIOS configuration settings that are available to determine whether any of the settings enable the memory remapping feature.

 

wait was he running vista x32 or x64? in your initial statement you said x32...

 

he was running 32 bit and it recognized the 4gb
i am positively sure

 

i also contacted HP to look into their configurations and the same is ture as long as you have one of the mentioned chip sets the 32bit and 64bit versions of the Vista OS will recognize the 4GB. that being said how much can i get for my xps m1210

160gb hard drive
nvidia turbo 7400
i will put the original 1gb back in
the web cam built in
wirells a/g card interanl
dual layer dvd burner
media card reader
it has 3 years complete care
3 years accidental damage protection

 

The dell site has a disclaimer about that 4GB of RAM. They tell you it won't all be accessible. You must have missed it. You might need to click on the 'help me decide' button to get the window that has the disclaimer. It's a superscript number 1 as I recall.

Edit: on the plus side, maybe your chum w/ the 1330 will buy 1/2 of it off you? Unless you do serious numbercrunching, you'll probably never need it all anyway. I have 2 GB and only rarely use most of it when I am not running my finite element models.

 

32-bit Windows can use 4 GiB of RAM. No single process can use more than 2 GiB of RAM, but I believe something called "Physical Address Extension" makes it possible. It is a pain to program for memory segmentation, so while it is possible for a process to use more than 2 GiB of RAM in a 32-bit environment, it is rarely done in practice.

 

It's rather surprising to hear this considering that Dell itself offers the 4GB RAM has an option

 

Just keep the memory, why go through all the trouble of selling and buying and trading..... sign.... just keep it, it'll save you time and money.

 

Yeah maybe it will be good for me to use in my next laptop purchase. I was thinking of selling my XPS m1210 due to this memory snafu... Can someone tell me will the 3.25GB of memory be sufficent for me to run PropellarHead's Reasons software on my XPSM1210?