Help installed 3 gigs of memory but only 1 gig is showing up

[Arkitech]

I have an Acer Aspire I'm using for a HTPC, it came with only 512 mb so I bought an addditional 3 gig (3x1 gig sticks). However when I boot into windows I'm only showing 1.5 gig as being available. After running a system analyzer (Belarc Adviser) it shows all 4 memory modules are installed but for whatever reason only 1.5 gig seems to be available.

Is there anything I can do to use the entire 3.5 gigs?

 

[Slugbait]

There are numerous Acer Aspire desktops and notebooks, going back to the days of PC-100 memory. Model, mobo info would be more helpful. But I digress...

First, if using a 32-bit OS, you will get use of 3.14 gigs. If you have any hardware installed taking up IRQs, the amount of memory you will see available will drop from there.

I believe if the 512 module is still in the first slot, it may need to be moved to the fourth slot. But still, that's not going to get Windows to see 3.5 gigs (as pointed out above), but it might work.

But I digress again...let's say you have an Aspire T180. According to Crucial, this model needs to install memory in pairs. It doesn't say matching pairs. However, if you're configured to run in dual-channel mode, they must be matching pairs. So turning off dual-channel in the BIOS might work (if it's turned on).

My suggestion is to pull 1.5 gigs out, and run two gigs in dual-channel mode. For an HTPC, that's way more than enough memory. Personally, my MCE machine has been running perfectly fine on 512 for about two years now.

 

[Arkitech]

Thanks for the advice, I'll give those suggestions a try.


Just out of curiosity, you mentioned that you have 512 in your HTPC. Are you able to play 1080p clips without any stuttering or choppy playback? What processor is your machine?

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Are you able to play 1080p clips without any stuttering or choppy playback? What processor is your machine?

Never tried 1080p (afaik), but I downloaded the entire first season of BSG last year...it was touted as HD from the BitTorrent uploader, so I assume it was 720p. Looked incredible on my old Wega 36", much better than my Comcast live feed, no problem at all with playback.

The proc is a Northwood 3.06.