New Ram not working fully

[ViciouSkillz]

hey im new the this forum, but hopfully i can get some help.

i just purchased an upgrade for my moms computer which consist of

p4 ht 2.6 800 bus -prossessor

d875pbz - ht intell mother board

6800 gt oc -nvidia graphics card

creative audigy 2 -sound driver

and i just droped 4gb of Gskills 2x2 of (1gb+1gb combo) ram in it... but its only reading 3.28

and there was no performance upgrade from my corsshair 1gb (512+512 combo)

there are 4 slots all next to each other. they are grouped in pairs next to each othere like this ( [ ] [ ] ) the websites say it can hold 4 gb of ram...

my question is, do i have to tell the mother board that theres 4 gbs of ram and not 3.28 or is there anythign someone can tlel me what to do. id apprieciate it. thanks for the help!

 

[brinks]

You probably have 32 bit windows os installed, since that is limiting the max amount of detectable ram. You need to get 64 bit windows to detect all your ram.

 

[ViciouSkillz]

is that just a download or do i need to buy something?

 

[[t..o..m]]

lol it needs a full/new install of windows xp 64bit edition which you would have to buy. I would pull out two sticks of the RAM and just have 2GB and stick with the 32bit version of windows. Sell the rest

 

[Kharn]

A 32bit OS is not able to see more than 3.5gb (including graphics ram).

You will either have to buy a 64bit OS from Microsoft or get a 64bit linux distribution, or remove 1gb of ram from your system.

 

[ViciouSkillz]

hey thanks man i appriciate the help! if i have any more questions i will post a new blog