RAM Issue, Im new here.

[armithel]

The other day I bought 2x 1gb DDR2 sticks of Kingston off Newegg.
I plugged them into my Asus M3A78-EM desktop motherboard. Everything works fine...but my issue is that I dont feel its working its full potential..my reason being this:

PRIOR to me installing the new RAM I had 2 sticks of 1gb and 2 sticks of 512. This SHOULD EQUAL 3gb of total system memory, but when I went to my system properties it said there was only 2.75gb installed. So I "wtf'd" thinking maybe it was the RAM.

Well I bought the new sticks, plugged them in, totalling 4gb of 4 dual channel memory sticks in respective banks, and now its reading 3.25gb of system memory, half of what I bought to increase it.

What should I do guys?

Thanks in advance and all that, Im new here.

 

[Hefemeister]

You are running a 32bit operating system. 3.25 is about the maximum that it can use.

If you want the full 4gb you need a 64bit OS.

 

[armithel]

Well thanks a bunch, I guess I jsut needed a kick in the right direction. I always thought i was 64 bit but I guess I had my knowledge messed up.
How would one go about (with the least amount of damage to physical HDD memory) increasing to a 64-bit?
Otherwise I may as well just return the Kingston memory back since they're not having any noticable effect (which is what I was aiming for) lol
Thanks again

 

[Hefemeister]

You would need to purchase a 64bit OS, then do a clean installation as you cannot upgrade for 32 to 64 bit.