Memory usage 32bit task manager

[hazed100]

Hi all

Just swapped over from 2x1GB of corsair Dominator PC8500C5 5-5-5-15 RAM (with the tall cooling heatsinc) to :

2x2GB of Corsair Dominator PC8500C5 5-5-5-15 RAM (lower profile heatsinc version)

and at first I assumed it was running correctly due to Vista sytem properties saying it had 4.00GB RAM and CPUz150 saying 4096MB and connfirming the 5-5-5-15 timings were set correctly and recognising both dimm banks were occupied

However I then checked out Task manager and the performance tab for the memory and it says the following:

Physical Memory (MB)
Total 2046
Cached 1188
Free 346

(the graphic bar displays CPU usage 1% Memory 731MB)

Kernel Memory (MB)
Total 142
Paged 93
Nonpaged 49

System
Handles 15871
Threads 642
processes 55
Page File 1015M / 6983M

I thought this was odd, total of 2046? seems too low unless I should add together the memory total and the cached and free to see the real size of the RAM recognised?
I then went on to a forum to ask and was told i probably only had one bank running (only 1x2GB sticK) and that i should re-seat them to see if this fixes the problem
I then decided to reseat them and as the motherboard manual states that you can either use Dimm0 and Dimm2 or Dimm1 and Dimm4 , (i had put them in 0+1) I decided to use the other 2 (1+4) and restart it.(these were the two banks i had to use with the other RAM due to clash with Dimm0 and CPU Heatsinc size so I knew they were both working before also)

again it says 4GB in Vista and 4096 in CPuz but the Vista task manager still claims that total of 2046MB and a cached of 1188. I run a few benchmarks and they complete ok, even Everest Home works fine and claims the whole 4GB is there (memory speed tests for read/write latency and copy all work fine and show good readings)

so is the guy who told me one bank isnt working correct? or has he given me the wrong advice?

I know Vista 32bit doesnt utilise the entire 4GB due to the limitations of 32bit OS and that others have said to me they get roughly 3.2GB of their 4GB of RAM to use due to Vista and the RAM our video cards need (equal in RAM to the amount of Video card memory your card has) which in my case is 512MB.

(BFG 9800GTX 512MB)

I hope he's just wrong else it looks like i might have a dead module (seeing as how it has done the same for both configurations, i.e occupying Dimm0 and dimm2 or Dimm1 and dimm4)


Any help would be greatly appreciated as it would seem you guys might actually KNOW what youre talking about hehe

thanks

[Jasp]

Did a quick search on google and it seems a few people suffer for the same issue, the issue being vista lol

Possible fix, go onto the command prompt type msconfig, this should display a window go to the boot setting and see if the maximum memory box is checked, untick, save and reboot.

[Yellowbeard]

What motherboard are you using?

[GoNz0]

its in his system specs under his name

[Yellowbeard]

its in his system specs under his name

Odd, when I rolled over it earlier nothing happened. I guess the page had not fully loaded all the way across the Atlantic

Hazed, did you try the fix in the second post? And, do you have SP-1 on Vista? Was this a clean install with the current hardware? Have you tried clearing the CMOS?

[hazed100]

WHOOOOOOTTTTT!!!

Spot on there Jasp!

I run msconfig and went to the boot tab then advanced settings and it had the max memory usage box ticked and a total of 2048 in the box below it, I initially tried to press the arrows to raise the number but it wouldnt go above 2048,
I then decided to uncheck the box and restart my PC
when it booted I double checked in the bios the RAM was at 1066MHz and 5-5-5-15 timings, restarted
when in Vista I ran msconfig again and in the max memory box it had 0 and so i checked the box and hey presto 3581MB of usable memory!!

with 500 used for the graphics card it means Vista uses every ounce of RAM it can find!

Task manager as i look at it now under perfromance says:

Physical memory (MB)
Total 3581
Cached 1372
Free 1619


Thanks guys! now I can go tell those other idiots they were totally wrong and the "clever" people can be found in here heheh

thanks again all for help and ill regularly pop in here to see if i might have an answer or two for others as Im seeing lots of problems mentioned which i have either experienced or even solved.
pass on the karma

<S>!!!!

[Yellowbeard]

Did a quick search on google and it seems a few people suffer for the same issue, the issue being vista lol

Possible fix, go onto the command prompt type msconfig, this should display a window go to the boot setting and see if the maximum memory box is checked, untick, save and reboot.

Sweet, learned something today. I have not seen this before.

[Lee H]

Sweet, learned something today. I have not seen this before.

There is also an option to switch the system to loadup windows using all available cores, not just 1 single CPU core as well buried within the msconfig tab section.

It doesn't appear to make "that much" improvement on the boot time, but it does make my system load slightly quicker, especially when it's got the wireless card enabled.