Vista Ultimate showing half my RAM

[spqr2001]

I recently bit the bullet and bought Windows Vista Ultimate. I have gone through all the activation and everything else and it seems to be running fine. However, as I like to know everything I can about a system, I have been poking around and have noticed something odd. On my POST screen it shows I have 4 gig's of RAM (which I do), however in Windows it only shows that I have 2 gigs of RAM. I can't for the life of me figure out what would be causing the difference. Any ideas?

 

[videopho]

Try to patch the latest bios with your mobo and this following link should help shed some light about it:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605

 

[Noema]

Are you using the 32 or 64-bit version?

You won't be able to fully utilize the 4GB in Windows unless you are using the 64-bit version, but even with the 32-bit version you should be seeing at least 3GB.

 

[AllGamer]

disable your BIOS option to modify RAM,

then it will show 3GB instead of 2GB

 

[Nothinman]

I recently bit the bullet and bought Windows Vista Ultimate. I have gone through all the activation and everything else and it seems to be running fine. However, as I like to know everything I can about a system, I have been poking around and have noticed something odd. On my POST screen it shows I have 4 gig's of RAM (which I do), however in Windows it only shows that I have 2 gigs of RAM. I can't for the life of me figure out what would be causing the difference. Any ideas?

You likely have the 32-bit version and a lot of hardware, if you have an SLI setup then you lose a little bit over the combined amount of memory for both cards plus however much the rest of the motherboard and other cards needs. Since MS has intentionally limited the 32-bit version of Windows clients your only options are to install the 64-bit version to get access to all 4G of your memory or to remove some hardware and get a little bit closer but you'll never hit the full 4G with 32-bit Windows.

disable your BIOS option to modify RAM,

then it will show 3GB instead of 2GB

That won't change anything, if 2G is used by his hardware then the only way around that is to remove some hardware. The BIOS remapping option only affects whether the memory is accessible via addresses >4G and that won't change anything with 32-bit Windows.