"Will" wrote in message
...
"Robert Miles" wrote in message
. ..

"Will" wrote in message
...
I installed eight 512MB RDIMMs (using authorized Compaq part numbers for
the
memory) onto a Compaq W8000 workstation. At bootup the computer
BIOS
is
reporting only 3440 MB present.

Is this a limitation of a particular BIOS release? Is it corrected by
a
later upgrade?

Or would this indicate a problem with the memory?

--
Will

It's probably a problem with your operating system. The 32-bit operating
systems most current machines use can't use a full 4 GB and still be able
to handle input and output. However, I think I've read that some of the
Vista updates (probably 32-bit versions of Vista SP1) will show the full
4
GB as present, even though it's unable to use all of it. 64-bit versions
of
these operating systems don't have this restriction, and can go well
beyond
4 GB if your machine supports it, but are sometimes unable to use
software
written specifically for 32-bit machines. For example 32-bit drivers
seldom
work under a 64-bit version, and many companies which provided older
hardware don't intend to provide 64-bit versions of the drivers for their
older hardware.

If a machine uses 32-bit addresses, and devotes some of its address space
to handling input and output, as Windows machines do, it's unable to have
enough 32-bit addresses left to reach all of 4 GB.

As I originally posted, it is the W8000 BIOS that is reporting 3440MB.
So
before the computer OS ever starts to load, the computer is reporting 3440
MB not 4GB

--
Will

Which is likely to mean that the BIOS knows how much of the memory
space is reserved for things such as the video card and the BIOS itself,
and therefore avoids reporting it. You may want to check if your BIOS
has an option to assume a 64-bit operating system instead, and therefore
report the amount of memory reachable using 64-bit addresses.