4GB RAM installed, system reports 3.25GB

[sean armenta]

hello,

i have xp pro sp2, and a motherboard that supports 4GB of DDR2 RAM. so i installed 4GB in dual channel configuration (4x1GB).

in the bios, the system reports 4096MB.

however, in windows, the system reports only 3.25GB, PAE (physical address extension)

i have tried disabling the paging file, but no change. or should i still allocate 1.5 times the amount of installed RAM?

i have tried reading up on physical address extension, but i can't seem to understand what it's for. is this something i can disable?

i also read about the 3GB switch, and still no change after i edited the boot.ini fiile, but perhaps i did it incorrectly?

other system info:

P4 530J 3GHz HT processor

intel D945GNTL board updated w/latest bios

4x1GB DDR2 533 PC24200

thanks

[-pops-]

I can't answer your question but I am curious as to why you think you need such a large amount of RAM.

I have experimented in the past with putting 1, 2 and 3 sticks of 1GB RAM into a machine and not found very much difference in performance. OK, there was an improvement between one stick and two but between two and three I didn't notice anything much - certainly not enough to justify the expense of the extra.

Something you might try is to reduce the amount of RAM you have in there, one or two sticks at a time. Firstly to see if Windows reports correctly and second to see if the installation of the larger amount is actually worthwhile.

[dadyassa]

And post me the spare stick ;)