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More Ram

zigns62

New Member
Just put in 4gig in to laptop, it only see 2.75 of it, what's up? Why will it not read at least 3.5gig? laptop is 64bit X2, winXP. Any advise on how to make it see more ram?
:help:
Thanks for your help in advance
 

SignBurst PCs

New Member
You will need a 64 Bit OS to see all of it. XP64 or Vista64 will do. There are several factors as to why you can't see all of it, but basically, it is because other hardware is using some of the 4gb of available memory space that a 32 bit OS can use.

There is NOT a 3gb limit. A 32bit OS can address 4GB of RAM. 4GB is the max. You then have to deduct the space reserved by other hardware (i.e. video memory). This all adds up. On some systems, it only adds up to .25 Gb and on others is may add up to over 1GB.

A 64Bit OS doesn't have the 4GB limitation. It can address the 4GB that you have installed plus any extra that your hardware reserves.

In a desktop (or workstation), this is even more important as we can often physically fit more than 4GB of RAM. Some of our systems can fit up to 32GB and a 64 Bit OS is the only way to use all of that RAM.
 

animenick65

New Member
Do you know of any motherboard limitations on RAM for your model motherboard? Have you tried opening up the case and re-seating the RAM sticks? Also may want to try http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp and try the memory test to check for bad sticks. If all that fails, check and see if your motherboard has any self diagnostic tests it can perform to check for a possible bad memory slot. Hope this helps.
 

zigns62

New Member
It's a pavillion dv9000, I'v read that it you can install up to 4g of ram. With it not seeing the 2 sticks of 4g I have switch out 1 stick back to a 1g and it still only reads 2.75 g of ram. I'm I missing something?
 

SignBurst PCs

New Member
I looked up the dv9000 series notebooks and it looks like most of the dv9000 series are limited to 2gb of RAM.

More may "fit", but the bios is limited.

You may want to call HP to see if you exact model has this limitation. Sometimes there is a bios update that can change the limitation.
 
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