Hi Eric
I had a similar problem and I found a setting in the bios that sorted out
the problem.

It was a bios feature called wrap around memory holes that needs to be enabled.
My mobo is a ASUS and the feature is in the:
Advanced section->Chipset->Northbridge configuration->Memory config.

Now it might be named differently for different bios/mobo's - but look for
something like memory hole, memory leap etc.

Hi Sapkiller -

Thanks for the suggestion - I looked in the BIOS (F1 on start up) and there is no such switch on my system, or anything remotely resembling it.

I figured out that the video memory was using 512 MB (it has 256mb on board, but takes 256 more) , but when I disabled my Fire GL video card, it had no impact on the reported memory available.

I don't know how to reconcile the testimony of those in various forums who assert that 3.0 GB is the ceiling with the experiences of others on this forum who report more memory available.

What is your system, OS, memory, and how much does your system report as available?

Thanks again,

Regards,

Eric

you might have additionally an onboard video on your lenovo model which needs to be disabled ... onboard video mostly uses shared memory (takes it from your RAM sticks)
christian

Hi Eric
I have 2 systems with 4gb:

1. AMD64 X2 4200+, XP sp2 , Asus motherboard, 4gb Kingston ram,
reports 3.9 gb avail. to xp
2. Intel E6200, XP sp2, Asus mobo, 4gb Geil
reports 3.6gb avail. to XP

I just saw your reported memory numbers and its a bit weird

Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 2.55 GB
Total Virtual Memory 3.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 2.96 GB
Page File Space 5.88 GB

Could you post the commit charge ( its on the bottom right of your taskmgr
performance screen) - without any applications started.

btw ... i forgot to post a screenshot of an asus p5wdg2-ws with a simple matrox G550 PCIe videocard
http://vsl.co.at/upload/users/449/blacky_memory.png">

This is what my computer says with 4gb installed. I wonder if I need to check the bios in my asus motherboard:

Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 1.69 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.79 GB
Available Virtual Memory 2.74 GB
Page File Space 3.92 GB
Page File C:\\pagefile.sys

deswind, IMO this just says you have ~2.3 GB loaded at the time you have read the values, most of it used in kernel memory (my screenshot has been made direct after boot without having done anything).
if you have not applied the /3GB switch it might be worth to give it a try and see how far you could get then
christian

How could I have loaded 2.3 gb? This is with just XP running and no other programs running?
I did use the 3gb switch with USERVA=2850

I must have something else set wrong on my computer. I could not find that memory wrap option discussed above.

THANKS for any help.

deswind - compare my two screenshots. the upper one had a lot of applications loaded (only 124 MB available), the lower one only XP (3,46 GB available)
physical memory: upper one: 1 GB, lower one: 8 GB (of course XP-32bit only can access 4 GB), yours: 4GB ... so the board is reporting correctly to the operating system
it must be an XP issue/setting which prevents to access more ... 2 GB memory used for caching video, mapping PCI address space, ect is impossible.
christian

Hey Christian, Bjarne:

Thanks for the continuing help. My Task Manager reports:

Phsyical Memory (K)
Total 3,114,044
Available 2,528,868
System Cache 980,676

Commit Charge (K)
Total 379,792
Limit 2,983,252
Peak 593,872

Kernel Memory (K)

Total 117,664
Paged 53,000
Nopaged 64,688

PF Usages hovers at 370MB.

I've actually contacted a consultant to help me - I'll let everyone know if something of general utility comes from that.

Best regards,

Eric

just to add: moved the *innards* of a 2 GB pentium shuttle to a 4 GB core 2 duo yesterday and note: 3,4 GB physical memory available.
unfortunately i didn't have the time to fiddle around with BIOS settings too much (there is an onboard VGA and probably other unneeded stuff as well as a senseless multimedia ATI all in wonder 1900 videocard), but i'm pretty sure the missing RAM is just reserved for some mapped addresses and we could get another 300 - 350 MB available memory with some patience.
christian

HI again
Just remembered another (rather old) "feature" of some bios versions:
Shadow ram - if you have this turned on, your graphic card ram will be
mirror'd into the main ram.

I'm not at all sure this relates to your case, but it would account for the loss of 512 mb so maybe you should check out the bios?
Its most likely to be found in the advanced chipset section - memory or graphics.


oh just on more thing. 370mb commit charge is a bit high for a system just
after startup. I usually get figures in the 120-170 mb range

Hey Folks - I just wanted to say thanks, and to report that my consultant was unable to find a solution. The Lenovo BIOS on my laptop just doesn't allow one to make the kinds of adjustments to the resource settings that would allow me to free up (some) of that extra 1GB of address space.

Thanks everyone for your help..

On a happier note, I got FX teleport, and am now squeezing an extra 1.5 GB out of my old Pentium 4 2.5GHZ with 2GB ram! Which gets me thinking..... Old MacDonald had a farm...

Best regards,

Eric