I have installed 3Gigs of Ram, but Win XP save I have 2.75Gb

[pstokely]

My bios says I have 3Gb. ?

[RoyGBiv]

1. Do you have onboard video?

As in, not a separate video card but built-in to the system...

[pstokely]

2. No

I have a 256GB Nvidia card

[Gore1FL]

3. Where does it say you ram amount?

Look at your P.O.S.T. when it boots. What does it say?

[RoyGBiv]

4. Well, hmmm ...

A video card with 256 GB? Wow! I want one. ;-)

Sorry ... couldn't resist.

Seriously, I somehow didn't notice you'd responded to this until you got another reply. Sorry.

Well, shared video memory is often the culprit in these cases, so that was off the cuff.

But actually this is not all that uncommon when you're running 32-bit Windows and have more than 2GB installed, that being the limit for use by any individual process without doing some hocus pocus with your configuration. (Details available upon request, but I'd rather someone else who has more current experience with Windows do it as my mind has grown foggy on those sorts of things, and I don't want to cause you to fry something. There are guides out there that explain this better than I could.) It's usually 2.93 (IIRC) that Windows reports, so the 2.75 number threw me off.

I googled a bit and saw this number reported a lot with people who had 4GB installed, especially if they also had shared video memory. Speaking of googling, here's a link to a rather technical explanation of these sorts of things.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx

OnEdit: ... and a link to a brief thread started by someone with your exact problem:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7586_102-0.html?forumID=68&threadID=281435&messageID=2689199

In any case, I wouldn't worry over it too much if the BIOS is reporting properly. More than 2GB on a Win32 machine is approaching overkill unless you have a specific need for it (e.g. run several highly memory intensive applications at once) and/or applications that are compiled to use more than 2GB. You could take the step of burning a CD with Memtest on it and testing the memory to make sure it is all okay.

[hobbit709]

5. I'm running 4Gb RAM on my system

Here's what system information says about my memory

Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 2.77 GB

Now my Advanced Windows Care says I have 3582 Mb physical memory and 2841 Mb free physical memory.
This is on XP Pro Corporate w/ SP2

So 32 bit windows sees the 4 gigs but can't utilize more than 3½ gigs of it.

[canetoad]

6. Possibly

And ya can tell me if I'm in outer space if ya like, but is it possible that windows subtracts the amount of RAM needed to run start-up programs from the total physical RAM available?

[hobbit709]

7. Available RAM is what's left over after startup.

Yep, the other 500+Mb is used to load Windoze and drivers.

[RoyGBiv]

8. My understanding ...

... and it's only an understanding, possibly an incorrect one since I've never even played with a Windows machine with 4 gigs ... is that Windows 32-bit can certainly "see" the 4GB if configured properly, that last part being the key. It's the "off the shelf" models that generally aren't. I gather from your contributions here yours would be configured properly.

The ability of apps to use the whole 4GB is another thing entirely. Again if my understanding is correct, if you have the proper configuration, having that much memory in a 32-bit environment will allow you to keep more apps in memory without suffering performance losses. Where people become disgruntled is when they get that 4GB or whatever and expect it to increase the performance of one application like a game or Photoshop or something along those lines because those apps tend not to be compiled in a way that allows them to address more than 2GB regardless.

I know the basics of the issue 'cause this is one of the things that first motivated me to learn how to compile my own custom Linux kernel. The generic 32-bit kernel with most distros is compiled in a way that more than 2GB ends up being largely wasted.

Anywho ...

[Deja Q]

9. x86 architecture limitations; most DMA peripherals use channels otherwise used by RAM.

If you have an SLI system with one nvidia 8800GTS video card, you'll see 3.3GB. Add in a second 8800GTS video card and available RAM will go down to ~2.8GB (so I've read...).

That's why 64-bit will always be preferable...

[DainBramaged]

10. WIN XP 64 will properly utilize 4 gb of ram

more than 2gb in XP is overkill.

[Clovis Sangrail]

11. depends on what you're doing

xp 32 can handle up to 4gb but only 3 is going to be addressable by apps.
(with a bit of tweaking)
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

That extra gig can make a huge difference if you're running stuff like SAS or blast.

[BlueJazz]

12. Are you sure you've disabled on-board Video in your Bios.?

...and uninstalled the on-board video in the system?

I have 3 Gig Memory and showed 2.75 until I did the above...now shows 3.0