My RAM was showing 4Gb in POST, now it shows 3.2Gb?
 

At the weekend I installed an Asus P5W DH Deluxe after memory problems with P5Q Deluxe. I installed my 4Gb of Corsair RAM and it was showing 4Gb during POST. However, in the past 24hrs it is displaying 3.2Gb with the remaining 800Mb going towards 'Appropriated Memory'.

Why has this suddenly happened? I've never seen it happen on my other P5W DH mobo or the P5Q Deluxe.

Tom.

32-bit XP?

Yes.

That's the problem--you need a 64-bit OS to address more than about 3.2-3.25GB of RAM. Nothing much you can do unless you wish to install a 64-bit version of Windows or Linux.

In this situation windows 7 x64 would be the ticket. Windows XP x64 did not have much support.

I know the implications of XP but how come it was showing 4Gb for a couple of days or so then since yesterday it has been showing 3.2Gb?

Tom.

it probably said 4GB RAM 3.2 useable

32 bit oses can only address between 3 and 3.75 gb. It usually falls around 3.2 in most cases. And as athlonx2 said, you probably seen 4gb installed and 3.2 usable. Also have you made any recent hardware changes? Like Sli

I swear it said 4Gb and nothing else. Then, that number switched to 3.2 - no other lines of text/numbers.
Oh well.

Tom.

can you give us a screen shot of your system properties?

Dİd you re-installed your OS ? There is a story behind this , once microsoft bored from same question and showed 4GB at system spec screen, some memory adress used by system and graphic card memory also decreased from 4Gb .
You may or may not see 4Gb memory at windows control panel but it works that way , iirc microsoft made apatch or something like that to show 4Gb always

even if your windows properties ever showed 4GB, only 3.2GB may be used by 32-bit OS. Typical "issue" for many users.

More than 3.2GB can be used, but it depends on other hardware in the system. Since each device takes up a section of addressable memory, each device lowers the amount of system memory XP can address. A lot of times going into the BIOS and disabling all the the necessary things will raise the usable amount a decent amount.

Brandon,
POST is showing 4.096Gb while Properties (CCleaner) are both showing 3Gb.

Jagd,
Yes, three times. The first time to allocate more space to 'C' so a complete re-install and HD format, then a second on just C and then finally a third complete re-instal and format.

It's no big deal, I can live with it.

Tom.

Windows XP 32bit can only use 4 gigs of system RAM in total, that includes the 1 gig of RAM on your video card. That is why your only seeing 3 gigs of RAM available. Install a 64bit OS and you'll be able to use all 4 gigs of RAM.