Operating system only recognizes 3.25gigs of ram when i have 4 installed?

Question

i have 4 gigs of ram install and on any operating system it says i only have 3.25 yet in the bios it registers that i have four gigs

Answer 1

Simple answer: 32-bit OS sees up to 4GB. Total RAM you can see is 4GB - video card ram, that's the total addressing space it has.

Simple solution: Get 64-bit OS or just use it as is.

windows xp 32 bit will acually see 3.25gb. that is the limitation of 32 bit OS, 64 bit will see 128gb of ram amd use every bit of it. I have windows xp x64 with 6gb of ram.

And you have to have a 64 bit processor to have 64 OS

Answer 2

32bit operating systems like windows XP or vista 32bit do not have enough memory address.. You need a 64bit OS like XP 64 edition or vista ultimate  to take full advantage of all four gigs thats just the way it is.. Your better off having 3Gigs installed not four if you remain with a 32bit OS... Have a read of this forum http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3439...

Answer 3

The onboard graphics card is using some of the installed RAM.  Buy a graphics card (if you have a desktop).

Answer 4

The label shows that the ram is 4 gb but it isn't exactly that for eg. i have 2gb installed but it shows only 1.76 gb same happens with pendrive, try it yourself..

Answer 5

You may see anywhere from 2.75 - 3.5Gb RAM, this is due to an architectural design made long ago.

This is all due to memory mapped I/O reservations , these use your physical memory and masks them out so that they cannot be used for actual working memory , that is also independent of the OS installed.

32-bit Windows is limited to a maximum of 4GB and cannot see any pages above 4GB.

What you eventually end up seeing as you final amount of ram is all Dependant on your

*Operating System

*BIOS

*Motherboard Chipset

*Installed PCI Devices

etc...

Answer 6

You'll need to upgrade to windows vista 64 bit edition. The 32 bit edition only recognizes 3326mb of ram :(