Problem memory 3gb doesn't get properly detected

[woodspire]

Hi.

I have a DFI Lanparty UT nf4 SLI-DR with an AMD Athlon 4400+ dual-core.

Memory:

2x OCZ PC-3200 400Mhz (slot 1 & 3) OCZ4001024ELDCPER2-K 2-3-2-5
2x OCZ PC-3200 400Mhz (slot 2 & 4) OCZ4002048ELDPE-K 2.5-3-2-5

Lasted bios (2006-06-04)
The bios only detect 2gb. Same thing for Windows
But CPU-Z in windows show all the 4 dimms.

Why is the bios not detected 3gb ?

I know the maximum ram is 4gb so 3gb should be correct ? I don't care for the moment about the speed or if it dual channel or not, I only want to see 3gb and I can't even do that.

Does anybody knows why ? And also, if the motherboard doesn't handle this kind configuration, where is it written ? Because if DFI doesn't say it, it SHOULD be supported.

 

[secretanchitman]

hi welcome to the forums!

windows xp only detects around 3GBs of RAM. theres no way to get around it, unless you upgrade to windows xp x64 edition...or windows vista. cpu-z will show all the dimms, but its up to windows on how much it can use.

it looks like you have 2x512MB and 2x1GB respectively...effectively making it 3GBs...you sure you have 4GBs total?

 

[Peter]

How much room (inside the total available space of 4GB in a 32-bit environment) does your graphics solution take?

 

[woodspire]

I don't have 4gb but 3gb (2x512 + 2x1024) and the nf4 motherboard should support 4gb max so 3gb should be piece of cake. But only 2gb get detected. why ?

 

[Peter]

Care to answer my question? How much RAM on your graphics card(s)?

 

[woodspire]

2 geforce 7800 gtx (256 Mb each)

 

[Peter]

Including the system's own bits and pieces, that'll reduce the AVAILABLE SYSTEM SPACE down a gigabyte roughly.

Go to Device Manager, View->Resources by Type, unfold Memory, and post that list here. That'll tell us the lowest address that is occupied by an I/O device, which will indicate the maximum amount of RAM you can have in a 32-bit OS.

And that again tells you whether your system is reducing the usable amount of RAM because it's running low on total address space, or whether it's in fact not handling the DIMMs right.

 

[woodspire]

[00000000 - 0009FFFF] System board
[000A0000 - 000BFFFF] NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
[000A0000 - 000BFFFF] PCI bus
[000A0000 - 000BFFFF] PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
[000CF200 - 000CFFFF] System board
[000F0000 - 000F7FFF] System board
[000F8000 - 000FBFFF] System board
[000FC000 - 000FFFFF] System board
[00100000 - 7FEDFFFF] System board
[7FEE0000 - 7FEFFFFF] System board
[80000000 - DFFFFFFF] PCI bus
[B0000000 - BFFFFFFF] Motherboard resources
[C0000000 - CFFFFFFF] NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
[C0000000 - CFFFFFFF] PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
[D0000000 - DFFFFFFF] NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
[D0000000 - DFFFFFFF] PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
[E0000000 - EFFFFFFF] Motherboard resources
[F0000000 - FE02FFFF] PCI bus
[F7000000 - F9FFFFFFF] PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
[F8000000 - F8FFFFFFF] NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
[F9000000 - F9FFFFFFF] NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
[FA000000 - FAFFFFFF] NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
[FA0000000 - FCFFFFFF] PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
[FB000000 - FBFFFFFF] NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
[FDA00000 - FDAFFFFF] PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
[FDB00000 - FDBFFFFF] PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
[FDC00000 - FDCFFFFF] PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
[FDD00000 - FDDFFFFF] PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
[FDEFE000 - FDEFE7FF] VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
[FDEFF000 - FDEFF3FF] Silicon Image SiI 3114 SoftRaid 5 Controller
[FE02A000 - FE02AFFF] NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator
[FE02B000 - FE02BFFF] NVIDIA nForce 4 Serial ATA Controller
[FE02C000 - FE02CFFF] NVIDIA nForce 4 Serial ATA Controller
[FE02D000 - FE02DFFF] NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio Codec Interface
[FE02F000 - FE02FFFF] Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
[FEB00000 - FEB000FF] Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
[FEB00000 - FEBFFFFF] PCI bus
[FEC00000 - FEC00FFF] System board
[FEE00000 - FEEFFFFF] System board
[FEFFFF000 - FEFFFFFF] System board
[FFF80000 - FFF80FFF] System board
[FFF90000 - FFFBFFFF] System board
[FFFED000 - FFFEFFFF] System board
[FFFF0000 - FFFFFFFF] System board

 

[ryderOCZ]

@ Woodspire,

You posted that 2 of the sticks are 2.5-3-2-5 and 2 of them are 2-3-2-5....that is the SPD on each pair?

The DFI board must have the CAS latency match on all Dimms installed in the system on the SPD to see all the ram.

 

[woodspire]

Yes. 2.5-3-2-5 and 2-2-2-5 in SPD. But if I set the bios with predefine value instead of the default "auto" mode, is the SPD values mather ? I really don't know why they would mather because I force the motherboard to specific values.

 

[Peter]

So your I/O is starting at address B0000000h, which (convert hex do dec) is at 2.75 GiB. In layman's terms, 1.25 GiB of your total 32-bit addressable space is occupied by I/O devices - and this means you cannot have more than 2.75 GiB of RAM.

 

[ryderOCZ]

Originally posted by: woodspire
Yes. 2.5-3-2-5 and 2-2-2-5 in SPD. But if I set the bios with predefine value instead of the default "auto" mode, is the SPD values mather ? I really don't know why they would mather because I force the motherboard to specific values.

Yes it matters....the DFI boards have to have the same CAS latency programmed on the SPD or you see issues like this...sometimes it won't even allow you to boot, it will just beep at you.

@Peter,

This case has nothing to do with addressing...it is merely the SPD on the dimms.

 

[Peter]

Yes it does. Even if the board would detect and accept all the DIMMs, he'd still not get 3 GBytes of AVAILABLE memory, because all but 2.75 GiB of TOTAL system space are already taken by other stuff. Sure, the AMD64 processors can remap the remainder to above-4GiB space, but you need to have a 64-bit OS to get there.