Upgraded to 4GB of Ram

I installed 4gbs of ram in my asus f3ka. it says it has 2462mb of ram i am no genius when it comes to computers. any clue of why this is

 

OS is 32-bit, so max you can see is around 3.5GB. All the peripherals etc are taking the rest, in your case around 1.1GB, so you only have 2.4GB for programs.

 

Partially correct...but definitely the right idea.

32bit OS's can only address 2^32 different locations in a PC. 2^32 equals 4GB exactly. Locations can include (but are not limited to) USB controllers, RAM, video RAM, firewire, modem, ethernet, audio stuff, SATA controllers, CD drives, etc, etc. Anything in a PC needs an 'address' in order for it to communicate with the rest of the PC.

When addresses are handed out on a PC, everything except for RAM gets addresses first. This is because hardware MUST always have an address, otherwise the PC will not work. External RAM (aka system RAM) is always given the lowest priority for addresses.

So actually, it appears that your hardware in the system needs about 1.5-1.6GB of addresses to set up all the hardware. Usually, one can get 2.75-3.5GB of RAM but it appears you are an exception. You wouldn't happen to have an SLI system or something would you?

I would definitely say to make sure you have all the XP/Vista patches installed just in case, but I do not think this will help you. You are probably stuck where you are .

 

MoBo's have limitations, I highly doubt this has anything to do with anything mentioned above. I mean come on! This absolutly has nothing to do with patches.

 

I see the Asus F3Ka uses the AMD 690G chipset. This might have its own addressing limitation. I can't find any detailed documents on that chipset.

What does CPU-Z say about your memory? (Both the Memory and SPD pages).

John

 

So here's a question. Is it worth upgrading to 4GB of memory from 2GB, all things considered? Does the dual channel mode still function? Is the memory less efficient because only ~1.5GB of one stick is being used? What about 3GB? Better or worse?

 

In most cases no, its not worth it unless you are using ram demanding applications/games. There has been argument that 3Gb actually runs slower than 2Gb but it is an argument that has never been properly addressed yet in my opinion.

To clearly answer the question, what do you need the ram for?

 

if you run vista x64 you need to install the service pack vista sp1 rc v.668 in order to see the 4GB in the system. If you run XP or vista 32 you will see max 3GB whatever is your memory...

 

I consider that 3GB is the sensible compromise. 1GB + 2GB RAM does not suffer a significant performance hit. There's some test results in the dual channel RAM thread.

John