Trivial phenomonon

[clocker]

Whilst playing around this weekend I decided to try a bit of an experiment.

Removing the i-RAM card, I populated my motherboard with the 4x1GB sticks...just to see what Windows would be like.
Oddly, the BIOS would only recognize three gigs.

The board would not even POST with only three sticks installed however.
Put in the fourth and booting would proceed as normal despite the incorrect inventory provided by BIOS.

I Memtested all four sticks and (no surprise) they all passed.
DFI clearly states that the board will support 4GB.
BIOS steadfastly refuses to actually see 4 GB though.

Odd, don't you think?

[Mivaro]

I remember reading about such a problem, if i remember correctly the solution was something like memory remapping (?).


Found this link:
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/?postid=152

[clocker]

Thanks, Mivaro.
Remarkably en pointe.

Off to Google now...

Edit:
In a remarkable instance of serendipity someone posted this exact issue on the [H] forum.
Turns out that enabling the "memory hole" under chipset options "remaps" the RAM addressing. I had actually seen this option before without realizing what it was.
Windows now sees 3.75GB.
Something is holding the last 256MB hostage but I refuse to pay the ransom.

It's not like I need this much RAM anyway...I was just playing around-although it IS somewhat deceptive that all the manufacturers claim their boards support up to 4GB when in fact, they don't.