"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.