|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Todd
Guest
|
 Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 8:22 am Post subject: problem with Asus Commando with 4 gigs of ram. |
 |
|
I am running an Asus Commando motherboard with two 1gig sticks of
Corsair DDR2 memory. 4-4-4-12 (PC-6400)
This is working great, and I have my total of 2 gigs of ram.
I wanted to upgrade to 4 gigs of ram, so I purchased another two
EXACTLY identical Corsair 1gig memory modules.
So now I have four 1gig sticks of Corsair DDR-2 ram. All 4 sticks are
exactly the same. Same brand, same model, same timings (4-4-4-12,
PC-6400)
Problem is when I plug in all four sticks, the system shows as having
3008 ram...
I have swapped around the memory,and any combo of two will give me
2048, so I know all the memory works fine. But if I plug in all four
(in any order), the bios shows as having 3008 megs of ram.
What gives? Anybody know why I don't see 4096? I understand some
systems have a problem going over 3.5gigs of ram, and I was willing to
live with only seeing 3.5gigs of ram, but 3008? Makes no sense. If I
would see only 3 gigs of ram, it should be 3072. So I don't see how
3008 is coming up.
I patched the system to the latest bios, and that did not help either.
Here is my system:
Asus Commando (Bios rev 1001)
Asus branded nVidia GeForce 8800GTX
Creative Labs X-Fi Fatality edition
WD SATA2 400gig HD
Sony IDE 820 DVD Burner
Running Vista 32bit edition. This is why I wanted more ram  |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
|
|
Todd
Guest
|
| Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 2:23 am Post subject: Re: problem with Asus Commando with 4 gigs of ram. |
|
|
On May 24, 4:28 am, victor <vic...@oeroeboeroe.xs4all.nl> wrote:
| Quote: | "Thomas Wendell" <tumppiw_nos...@hotmail.com> wrote in
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus:
Do re-read the original post... it's not Windows, the problem is
that BIOS doesn't report full amount of memory..
The system will only show the full amount of memory when in the bios
under the advanced menu, then chipset menu, the 'memory remap feature'
is set to enabled. But the you have to use Vista 64 bit.
Paul wrote:
Todd wrote:
I am running an Asus Commando motherboard with two 1gig sticks
of Corsair DDR2 memory. 4-4-4-12 (PC-6400)
This is working great, and I have my total of 2 gigs of ram.
I wanted to upgrade to 4 gigs of ram, so I purchased another two
EXACTLY identical Corsair 1gig memory modules.
So now I have four 1gig sticks of Corsair DDR-2 ram. All 4
sticks are exactly the same. Same brand, same model, same
timings (4-4-4-12, PC-6400)
Problem is when I plug in all four sticks, the system shows as
having 3008 ram...
I have swapped around the memory,and any combo of two will give
me 2048, so I know all the memory works fine. But if I plug in
all four (in any order), the bios shows as having 3008 megs of
ram.
What gives? Anybody know why I don't see 4096? I understand
some systems have a problem going over 3.5gigs of ram, and I was
willing to live with only seeing 3.5gigs of ram, but 3008?
Makes no sense. If I would see only 3 gigs of ram, it should be
3072. So I don't see how 3008 is coming up.
I patched the system to the latest bios, and that did not help
either. Here is my system:
Asus Commando (Bios rev 1001)
Asus branded nVidia GeForce 8800GTX
Creative Labs X-Fi Fatality edition
WD SATA2 400gig HD
Sony IDE 820 DVD Burner
Running Vista 32bit edition. This is why I wanted more ram :)
I found a Microsoft web page the other day, that claimed 32 bit
Vista would not show more than "3.12GB" of RAM. Where that number
comes from, I have no idea.
Note that there is a possibility that the 768MB of RAM on the
8800GTX, has to be mapped into the address space. Maybe that will
be subtracting from the total RAM in any case. In other words, if
you switch to WinXP, it probably will get no better. The FAQ here
mentions seeing 2.75GB
with an SLI setup. This FAQ from Asus could be improved a bit, to
include configurations like yours.
"I have install total 4GB memory on my motherboard.
However, it can only recognize around 3.1GB or less."
http://support.asus.com/faq/faq_right_second_detail.aspx?kb_guid=D
06D6034-D5C9-49C4-5E1B-CF724DB5C000&SLanguage=en-us
In this "Vista Performance Guide", they talk about 4GB of memory,
but it isn't clear if they ever tested it for the article. There
are a couple comments in the comment section, near the top, about
4GB.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=1
Paul
--
regards, victor
|
Guys, Victor is right, this has nothing to do with Windows. I fully
understand that Windows will probably only show 3.5 gigs of ram (or
somewhere around there). But in the BIOS it only shows 3008.
The funny thing is, one poster here mentioned perhaps the memory
mapped to my GeForce 8800GTX is being subtracted from the 4096. Well,
perhaps. However, then when I only have 2 gigs, wouldn't it then show
only as having 1280 memory (2048 - 768) ???
It does not. It shows 2048. But when I plug in 4 gigs, it shows
3008. So that doesn't make any sense.
I simply do not beleive that a modern motherboard like the Commando
can't use 4 gigs of ram, that is complete nonsense. This board was
only release 5-6 months ago!
Anybody else out there with a Asus Commando and more than 2 gigs of
ram?
Is there some wierd issue with four 1gig sticks of this Corsair ram?
The link below goes right to Newegg's site. This is the memory I
purchased. Both the two 1gig sticks 3 months ago, when I built the
system. and then I ordered another two 1gig sticks a few days ago in
order to go to 4 gigs.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145034
Corsair sells these in a 2gig "pack" which is basically two identical
1gig sticks of DDR2 ram. So I have four identically matched sets of
Corsair memory.
I am stuck. I just don't understand what the problem is. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Paul
Guest
|
| Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 2:23 pm Post subject: Re: problem with Asus Commando with 4 gigs of ram. |
|
|
Todd wrote:
| Quote: | Guys, Victor is right, this has nothing to do with Windows. I fully
understand that Windows will probably only show 3.5 gigs of ram (or
somewhere around there). But in the BIOS it only shows 3008.
The funny thing is, one poster here mentioned perhaps the memory
mapped to my GeForce 8800GTX is being subtracted from the 4096. Well,
perhaps. However, then when I only have 2 gigs, wouldn't it then show
only as having 1280 memory (2048 - 768) ???
It does not. It shows 2048. But when I plug in 4 gigs, it shows
3008. So that doesn't make any sense.
I simply do not beleive that a modern motherboard like the Commando
can't use 4 gigs of ram, that is complete nonsense. This board was
only release 5-6 months ago!
Anybody else out there with a Asus Commando and more than 2 gigs of
ram?
Is there some wierd issue with four 1gig sticks of this Corsair ram?
The link below goes right to Newegg's site. This is the memory I
purchased. Both the two 1gig sticks 3 months ago, when I built the
system. and then I ordered another two 1gig sticks a few days ago in
order to go to 4 gigs.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145034
Corsair sells these in a 2gig "pack" which is basically two identical
1gig sticks of DDR2 ram. So I have four identically matched sets of
Corsair memory.
I am stuck. I just don't understand what the problem is.
|
OK, I'll try and explain my view on it again.
A 32 bit processor has a 4 GB address space.
There are two things that need addressing. You want your processor to
be able to address any memory location in the DRAM. But you also want
to address PCI devices, AGP devices, or PCI Express devices. They
sit on busses, and the busses need addressing too.
*******
(See Figure 9 on PDF page 118 for an example of the address space.)
ftp://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/25252502.pdf
(The issue is addressed here, but the experimental data is collected
on a PCI Express equipped system. An AGP system might leave more
available space.)
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/4GB_Rev1.pdf
(A Tyan Tiger MPX reporting about 3.7GB)
http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.tyan/browse_frm/thread/f15813e39858414c/eceb0da690e04193
(More 4GB results)
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=42545
******
The busses are absolutely essential, and the computer would be isolated
and useless if it only talked to the memory.
So we start with the 4GB space. We define a 256MB chunk for the PCI
bus. We define a chunk for AGP perhaps. Another chunk for PCI Express.
They are not allowed to overlap with the usage of memory. Now, we are
left with say 3.25GB of address space. The BIOS makes these allocations
during POST.
We happen to own 4GB of memory. But there is only 3.25GB of
address space left in hardware. The result is, only 3.25GB of the
4GB of memory is accessible. There is no physical way to get to the
other 0.75GB of memory, since we needed that other space to correspond
to the system busses.
Now, consider a computer with 2GB of memory. Since we have 3.25GB of
address space available, the entire 2GB of memory can be addressed
without a problem. There is no "subtraction" as such, merely a
limited resource. During POST, the BIOS sizes up the requirements
of the various busses. The BIOS allocates space for the busses in the
top of the address space, filling downwards. The remaining address space
can be used to access memory. Any memory over and above the available
address space, is out of luck.
What Vista 32 bit or WinXP 32 bit reports as available memory, cannot
be any greater than what the BIOS has set up. If I set up one of the
older S939 SLI systems, with two PCI Express video cards in it, the
address space remaining to be usable to address the memory is 2.75GB.
If you install four 1GB sticks, the BIOS only allows 2.75GB of the memory
to be accessed. When WinXP 32 bit or Vista 32 bit deals with such
a computer, the reported memory cannot be any greater than 2.75GB.
This doesn't explain how the Microsoft KB article, arrived at its
3.12GB limit for Vista. If I plug only a PCI video card into a
computer, and use few of the other bus resources, that should
leave space for the addressing of more memory than 3.12GB. It is
up to the BIOS to define the resource allocation, efficient or not.
And how usable the memory is, is a completely separate issue. A single
program may not be able to harness all of the memory (and I bet someone
else can do a better job of explaining all the options and issues there).
Paul |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fred
Guest
|
| Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 11:23 am Post subject: Re: problem with Asus Commando with 4 gigs of ram. |
|
|
If you need another explanation to reinforce what you have read in this
thread then read here.
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20070210010537554&board_id=1&model=Commando&page=1&count=16
Todd wrote:
| Quote: | I am running an Asus Commando motherboard with two 1gig sticks of
Corsair DDR2 memory. 4-4-4-12 (PC-6400)
This is working great, and I have my total of 2 gigs of ram.
I wanted to upgrade to 4 gigs of ram, so I purchased another two
EXACTLY identical Corsair 1gig memory modules.
So now I have four 1gig sticks of Corsair DDR-2 ram. All 4 sticks are
exactly the same. Same brand, same model, same timings (4-4-4-12,
PC-6400)
Problem is when I plug in all four sticks, the system shows as having
3008 ram...
I have swapped around the memory,and any combo of two will give me
2048, so I know all the memory works fine. But if I plug in all four
(in any order), the bios shows as having 3008 megs of ram.
What gives? Anybody know why I don't see 4096? I understand some
systems have a problem going over 3.5gigs of ram, and I was willing to
live with only seeing 3.5gigs of ram, but 3008? Makes no sense. If I
would see only 3 gigs of ram, it should be 3072. So I don't see how
3008 is coming up.
I patched the system to the latest bios, and that did not help either.
Here is my system:
Asus Commando (Bios rev 1001)
Asus branded nVidia GeForce 8800GTX
Creative Labs X-Fi Fatality edition
WD SATA2 400gig HD
Sony IDE 820 DVD Burner
Running Vista 32bit edition. This is why I wanted more ram |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Boldy
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 1:12 pm Post subject: Re: problem with Asus Commando with 4 gigs of ram. |
|
|
Clear explanation Paul,Thanks.
Boldy
"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message news:f369rn$js6$1@aioe.org...
| Quote: | Todd wrote:
Guys, Victor is right, this has nothing to do with Windows. I fully
understand that Windows will probably only show 3.5 gigs of ram (or
somewhere around there). But in the BIOS it only shows 3008.
The funny thing is, one poster here mentioned perhaps the memory
mapped to my GeForce 8800GTX is being subtracted from the 4096. Well,
perhaps. However, then when I only have 2 gigs, wouldn't it then show
only as having 1280 memory (2048 - 768) ???
It does not. It shows 2048. But when I plug in 4 gigs, it shows
3008. So that doesn't make any sense.
I simply do not beleive that a modern motherboard like the Commando
can't use 4 gigs of ram, that is complete nonsense. This board was
only release 5-6 months ago!
Anybody else out there with a Asus Commando and more than 2 gigs of
ram?
Is there some wierd issue with four 1gig sticks of this Corsair ram?
The link below goes right to Newegg's site. This is the memory I
purchased. Both the two 1gig sticks 3 months ago, when I built the
system. and then I ordered another two 1gig sticks a few days ago in
order to go to 4 gigs.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145034
Corsair sells these in a 2gig "pack" which is basically two identical
1gig sticks of DDR2 ram. So I have four identically matched sets of
Corsair memory.
I am stuck. I just don't understand what the problem is.
OK, I'll try and explain my view on it again.
A 32 bit processor has a 4 GB address space.
There are two things that need addressing. You want your processor to
be able to address any memory location in the DRAM. But you also want
to address PCI devices, AGP devices, or PCI Express devices. They
sit on busses, and the busses need addressing too.
*******
(See Figure 9 on PDF page 118 for an example of the address space.)
ftp://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/25252502.pdf
(The issue is addressed here, but the experimental data is collected
on a PCI Express equipped system. An AGP system might leave more
available space.)
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/4GB_Rev1.pdf
(A Tyan Tiger MPX reporting about 3.7GB)
http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.tyan/browse_frm/thread/f15813e39858414c/eceb0da690e04193
(More 4GB results)
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=42545
******
The busses are absolutely essential, and the computer would be isolated
and useless if it only talked to the memory.
So we start with the 4GB space. We define a 256MB chunk for the PCI
bus. We define a chunk for AGP perhaps. Another chunk for PCI Express.
They are not allowed to overlap with the usage of memory. Now, we are
left with say 3.25GB of address space. The BIOS makes these allocations
during POST.
We happen to own 4GB of memory. But there is only 3.25GB of
address space left in hardware. The result is, only 3.25GB of the
4GB of memory is accessible. There is no physical way to get to the
other 0.75GB of memory, since we needed that other space to correspond
to the system busses.
Now, consider a computer with 2GB of memory. Since we have 3.25GB of
address space available, the entire 2GB of memory can be addressed
without a problem. There is no "subtraction" as such, merely a
limited resource. During POST, the BIOS sizes up the requirements
of the various busses. The BIOS allocates space for the busses in the
top of the address space, filling downwards. The remaining address space
can be used to access memory. Any memory over and above the available
address space, is out of luck.
What Vista 32 bit or WinXP 32 bit reports as available memory, cannot
be any greater than what the BIOS has set up. If I set up one of the
older S939 SLI systems, with two PCI Express video cards in it, the
address space remaining to be usable to address the memory is 2.75GB.
If you install four 1GB sticks, the BIOS only allows 2.75GB of the memory
to be accessed. When WinXP 32 bit or Vista 32 bit deals with such
a computer, the reported memory cannot be any greater than 2.75GB.
This doesn't explain how the Microsoft KB article, arrived at its
3.12GB limit for Vista. If I plug only a PCI video card into a
computer, and use few of the other bus resources, that should
leave space for the addressing of more memory than 3.12GB. It is
up to the BIOS to define the resource allocation, efficient or not.
And how usable the memory is, is a completely separate issue. A single
program may not be able to harness all of the memory (and I bet someone
else can do a better job of explaining all the options and issues there).
Paul |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fix your Windows Problems - FAST.
FREE Safe Scan Registry Check. Locate & Fix Errors in Minutes!
|
|
|
|
| |
Watched Topics
Search
Register
Log in to check your private messages
Profile
Log in
Memberlist
Usergroups