Windows 7 - Ram problems...

alright. im not extreamly smart when it comes to hardware, and whats in my pc and such.... but i do know that i have 5 gigs of ram, although it only says i have 3.0 and 2.75 availible... help?

running windows vista 7...

and please, somone tell me how i would find the true amount of ram my computer has... not how much 7 thinks i have

Get your PC manual and provide as much detailed info about computer as possible. Make, model, CPU et cetera.

The answer to that is obvious! You are running the 32bit version of Vista as well as 7 and running right into the limitations on the 32bit kernel! With Vista's SP1 you would see Vista report a 4gb total for a 4gb system while only having some 3.571gb available!

When exceeding the 3+gb barrier the remaining memory addresses are simply mapped out to hardwares and unavailable as ram. The 64bit Windows on the other hand is not held back by the same barrier but will go up as far as one particular edition will see support before running into the mapping out problem with far more memory available there however.

In fact one of the latest articles you may be interested in reading goes by the title of "Windows 7 Survival Guide: From 32- To 64-Bit"! 64bit and x64 - Windows 7 Survival Guide: From 32- To 64-Bit

There's a few older articles that can offer more detailed explainations on how memory is mapped out to look over as well. 4GB Memory Problems and another one seen at Ask Dan, Ask Dan: What's with the 3Gb memory barrier?

Far as I know there is no way to run 5GB of Ram unless you mistakingly mix Ram sets which hardly ever works correctly and is not something you would ever want to do on purpose.

Suggest you go back to using a single memory kit, one or the other but not both together as it usually leads to problems such as you are having now.

My whole system is slow can someone plze post me some ddr400 please? Thanks

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Ever see a board with more then two dimm slots? You simply install two 2gb and a single 1gb or four 1gb with a pair of 512s! Mixing sizes isn't the ideal setup but as long as the dimms are the same speed and timings as well as type you wouldn't see headaches!

The recommendation commonly seen however is matching dimms like matched pairs being the optimum.

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There are two issues here and it's easy to confuse them. First of all enter the "Setup" (BIOS) during startup and see how much ram is reported. If you have five gigs installed but less is reported that means there is a problem with the ram. You possibly have a bad stick or they are not seated properly or mismatched, and are not being detected correctly. Once you sort that out you will see the correct amount reported in the Setup/BIOS and also in Windows 7. How much ram Windows 7 can use is another matter. If you're running 32 bit Windows 7 then you are going to see less then four gigs available even though you may have more installed. That's a limitation of the OS. If you have 64 bit Windows installed then all of the ram will be available. Hope this helps.

Generally if you don't have the factory or board manufacturer's logo screen enabled at post time you will see the total amount tallied onscreen when first powering up. With 4gb you will see it displayed in bytes that total over the even 4,000,000,000 figure in bytes 1024x1000x1000x4=4,096,000,000bytes=4gb 1024x1000x1000x5=5,120,000,000bytes=5gb

Well I wouldn't say hardly ever works. It depends greatly on the timings and speed and less on the actual size per chip.

For example if you took some OCZ ram all of the exact same speed and timings and you mixed 1 2gb stick with a pair on 1gb sticks across 3 DIMMs it would work fine and allow you to use 4gb when there are only 3 DIMM slots for ram.

However if you mix different speeds or different timings you might have and issue. You might also have an issue if you tried to run a 2gb stick and a 2gb stick as dual channel also.