P5GD1 and Pentium 640 and 4GB problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter AdamStone21
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A

AdamStone21

Hi!
I have MB ASUS P5GD1 (bios 1.08) and few problems:
1. system do not see more than 3GB of RAM - I have installed 4x1GB Kingston
400/CL3
2. system hangs during or after installing WinXPPro with Intel Pentium 4 640
(2mb cache) processor - when I put 1mb version it is ok

What is wrong?

Adam
 
Sounds like a BIOS problem...

Are you sure your motherboard supports 4GB? Windows XP Professional will
only see 3GB, and your apps will only use it if you add the /3GB switch to
the boot.ini.


Bobby
 
NoNoBadDog! said:
Sounds like a BIOS problem...

Are you sure your motherboard supports 4GB? Windows XP Professional
will only see 3GB, and your apps will only use it if you add the /3GB
switch to the boot.ini.


Bobby
Click to expand...
Not quite 'true'.
The point about the /3GB switch, is between 'application' memory, and
'system' memory. As standard, XP will only allocate a maximum of 2GB of
the 'application' memory, using the rest for the system. Since it rarely
needs this much, and on machines with large memory spaces, programs being
run, may well want a larger 'application' space, the /3GB switch was
provided. However a system will still see the full memory space without
this switch.
Seperately, there is the issue of memory space for other things. If you
have a PCI adapter, it may well use some space in the main memory. VGA
adapters also use a large 'chunk' of the memory map. So it is normal for
systems with 4Gb fitted, to only display perhaps 3.5GB as accessable. How
much is lost, 'varies' with different systems, and in some cases, you can
have only just over 3GB shown, with a large system BIOS, add-on BIOS for
some controllers, various cards etc., using avery large percentage of the
top 1GB...

Best Wishes
 
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