Ram Upgrade Problem

[sbjlsmtj]

Hi,
I have a system that I was going to replace for my main system but one of the suggestions was to try to add Ram to see if that fixed what I was trying to with the computer (which was to play world of warcraft). So I ordered 2 more of the same ram as I had to go up to 4 total gigs of ram.

AMD 64x2 dual core processor 4400
2 gig ram
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard
Nvidia Geforce 7800gt cards
SB Live 24 bit sound
Seagate HD 320 gig 7200
XP Op sys

Is my system and I'm trying to upgrade it to the 4 gigs of ram....problem is, after I put the ram into the empty spots, it only see .75 of it...system goes from 2.0 to 2.75 Ram. I don't know how it only sees 3/4 of 1 stick but that's what it's doing. I tried switching the ram to the opposite spots and it still shows 2.75. I took one stick out and it still shows 2.75, I switched the new stick with the other new stick in the same spot and it still shows 2.75. Took both new sticks out and it shows 2.0 again.

It seems that the motherboard is only seeing 3/4 of one stick and only out of one slot and reading nothing out of the 4th slot. It also seems that both new sticks are good cause it will read the 3/4 off of either stick. Any ideas on what's going on? Do I have to switch something somewhere? I thought it was just plug it in and it will see it.

Any help would be great. Thanks

[Skippman]

Common problem, it's your operating system. XP tops out at 4GB of addressable memory total. That's a combination of your GPU Memory and your System RAM.

You said 7800gt's and mentioned a SLI motherboard so I'm going to make the assumption you're running SLI which means at least two cards.

512MBx 2 (for each GPU) = 1GBMB + 4GB RAM puts total memory at 5GB. Windows tosses out 1GB of the RAM as it can only address 4GB of it (due to it being a 32bit OS) resulting in it only using 3GB of the RAM (approx).

The only solution to that problem is a 64bit OS such as XP64 or Vista. I'd recommend (and I can't believe I'm typing this) Vista over the 64bit distro of XP due to driver support which is virtually non-existant for 64bit XP.

Is it the BIOS that's reporting only 2.75GB or is this Windows itself (which would make sense)

[smack323]

if anything instead of replacing the RAM you should get a new video card. something like a 9800 GT would prob run better than both your 7800's. I assume your mother board is PCIe i dont think they made SLI in AGP.