Windows XP only sees 2GB RAM w/ 4G installed

[Yellowbeard]

Originally posted by: ch33zw1z

In my experience, it's not wrong. I've never had a XP32 installation "see" up to 4GB. And oddly enough, it's always subtracted the exact amount of video memory I have from RAM.

Just a side note as to 32bit OSs (XP and Vista) "seeing" 4GB of memory, Microsoft changed how this is displayed in the system properties. OEMs and SIs were selling 4GB of memory to 32bit OS customers and customers were complaining about their system not having the proper amount of memory. So, after this update 32bit users now "see" 4GB of installed memory. But, this update did not affect allocation or usage.

For the OP, is there any chance you could test all your hardware on a different, dare I say better MOBO? That memory allocation for that second GPU does not sound correct to me compared to other systems I've used.

And it should not matter if it is the BIOS hosing the allocation but, if you are bored or stumped, you could reinstall the OS with both cards installed. Did you do the original install of the OS with the EXACT same hardware profile you have now?

 

[tcsenter]

Only Vista changed memory reporting. XP still reports useable RAM.

 

[OneWingedAngel42]

So, it's been a while, but I have interesting news to report on this topic. I loaded two different Linux liveCDs (Slax and OpenSuse), and both of them reported only seeing 2G of physical memory (via `cat /proc/memino`). I think this definitely proves that the BIOS is somehow segmenting/shadowing/messing with the amount of memory reported to the OS.

Definitely interesting as well that when I remove one of my 256M video cards, the amount reported by the BIOS jumps by 1G.

I've run the MSI LiveUpdate, and it tells me that I've got the latest BIOS, video card firmware, and OS drivers.