Hi everyone, i have just upgraded my machine and im now having some issues with the amount of RAM i have installed and system reserving it, which may or not be due to both the onboard GPU and my ATI card thats just been added.

Ill start by posting my machine details, and before upgrade and after upgrade stats, including physical hardware installed, bios and system readings, and OS..

My machine is an HP DC5100 SFF, with HP 09e8H mobo which includes the Mobile Intel® 915GM/GMS, 910GML Express Chipset Family onboard GPU, and a pentium 4 2.8ghz single core CPU.

Before:

Windows 7 home premium 32 bit

2816 MB DDR2 RAM, consisting of...

2x 1GB Kingston KVR800D2N5/1G, PC2 6400
1x 512MB Dane elec value VD2D667-064645N PC2 5300
1X 256MB HP HYS64T32000HU PC2 4200

RAM detected in BIOS, 2816mb, RAM detected in CPU-Z 2816mb, RAM detected by windows in computer > system 2.75 GB (2.75 GB usable)

After the RAM upgrade...

Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit

4096 MB DDR2 RAM, consisting of...

2x 1GB Kingston KVR800D2N5/1G, PC2 6400
2x 1GB Corsair xtreme performance XMS2 CM2X1024-PC2 6400

RAM detected in BIOS, 4096mb, RAM detected in CPU-Z 4096mb, RAM detected by windows in computer > system 4.0GB (3.12 GB usable)
resource monitor shows 905mb as hardware reserved.

I thought that was a lot of RAM to be losing, over 900mb worth, maybe it was the 64 bit OS, or maybe the onboard GFX, eventhough i hadnt previously lost any RAM due to the onboard, i know the card itself wouldnt have 900mb of capability, but maybe with address space etc etc it may be the cause, so i added my card, thinking that it would release any mem that the onboard was using before because i would now be using a dedicated card, but no.

Card fitted: ATI HD5450 512mb PCI-e, and now, its even worse...

RAM detected in BIOS, 4096mb, RAM detected in CPU-Z 4096mb, RAM detected by windows in computer > system 4.0 GB (2.75 GB usable)
resource monitor shows 1282mb as hardware reserved.

My BIOS has no memory mapping options so i couldnt 'release' any that way, i have unchecked the max memory option in msconfig, checked in the bios and the intel graphics adapter (presuming this is the onboard?) is now automatically been disabled since i added the card (it was set on IRQ5 before i think) disabled the intel gfx adaptor within windows device manager, and i have also tried loading the default BIOS setup.

Then i tried resetting the CMOS, it booted, stopped at the black BIOS screen, counted up in mb in the top left corner from 0mb all the way to 4096mb, than after it had finished that count it showed some other info lower down on that same screen, i dont have the exact wording but it was something like...

Devices and info.

ATAPI DVDRW drive
500GB SATA HDD
3200mb RAM

and now within windows i still have 4.0 GB physically detected, 2.75 GB usable, and no idea at all what that 3200mb reading in the BIOS detection screen was all about.

The readings in resource monitor before and after the GFX card addition differ by 377mb, so i cant see it being a case of more usage by another piece of hardware as surely id lose 512mb exactly, unless address space for a 512 card could be as high at that amount.

Here are pictures of everything i consider to be relevant to this...


















So, windows knows i have 4GB installed, as does CPU-Z, onboard GFX are disabled in every way possible, and as you can see, the HD5450 graphics card is using its own 512mb of memory, so why cant i use my RAM? Does anyone have any other ideas of things i could try?

MAny thanks in advance

Quote from danthebangerboy :

Then i tried resetting the CMOS, it booted, stopped at the black BIOS screen, counted up in mb in the top left corner from 0mb all the way to 4096mb, than after it had finished that count it showed some other info lower down on that same screen, i dont have the exact wording but it was something like...

Devices and info.

ATAPI DVDRW drive
500GB SATA HDD
3200mb RAM

well, there you have your answer already.. BIOS allocating 3200 Mb .. You can ditch all the Windows talk, unnecessary overhead.

Why the BIOS does that, I don't know.

I would imagine it's a motherboard limit (but obviously look the specs up and check).

The 915 is a budget chipset, and they wouldn't of imagined someone would fit 4GB all the years ago when the board was made.

Cheers guys, im looking through the bios settings and i cant see any way to change the mem allocation, although it still doesn't explain why its only showing 2.75GB as usable, surely you'd expect it to show 3.2 usable, unless my PCI-e cards address space is ~450mb, and the other 800 odd is still being allocated to the onboard GFX in some way, although its disabled in device manager and also in the BIOS as well.

I just tried swapping the RAM so now the kingston is in channel 1 (slot 1 and 2) and the corsair is in ch2 (slot 3/4) but its made no difference, although after doing this i did reset the CMOS again and managed to get a picture of the screen i mentioned, as well as a shot of what the BIOS is physically selecting, which is the full amount.

And yeah jakg, i know it was never a set the world alight machine, even in its day, but i am right on the memory limit as the user guide says...

"The memory sockets on the system board can be populated with up to
four industry-standard DIMMs. These memory sockets are populated
with at least one preinstalled DIMM. To achieve the maximum
memory support, you can populate the system board with up to 4GB
of memory configured in a high-performing dual channel mode.

For proper system operation, the DDR2-SDRAM DIMMs must be:
■ industry-standard 240-pin
■ unbuffered PC3200 400 MHz-compliant or PC4300
533 MHz-compliant
■ 1.8 volt DDR2-SDRAM DIMMs
The DDR2-SDRAM DIMMs must also:
■ support CAS latency 3, 4, or 5 (CL = 3, CL = 4, or CL = 5) for
DDR2/400 MHz; supports CAS latency 4 or 5 (CL = 4 or CL = 5)
for DDR2/533 MHz
■ contain the mandatory JEDEC SPD information
In addition, the computer supports:
■ 256Mbit, 512Mbit, and 1Gbit non-ECC memory technologies
■ single-sided and double-sided DIMMS
■ DIMMs constructed with x8 and x16 DDR devices; DIMMs
constructed with x4 SDRAM are not supported
✎ The system will not start if you install unsupported DIMMs"

The thing that i do not understand is that i always had 2.75GB of RAM installed before, when i was using the onboard, and when i was using the HD54540 card (the card was in my other halfs computer for a while, ive stolen it back ) and at no point during that time was any of the RAM hardware reserved, yet i add more physical RAM, and lose some to allocation, then add the ATI card and lose even more, surely that cannot be normal?

The loss of some memory when using onboard graphics makes sense, as before i took my card back out of my fiancees comp her system said 1.00 GB (1.00 GB usable) and now its running on its onboard VIA chrome9 chipset again it shows 1.00 GB (767 MB usable) which makes sense, ~128mb reserved for the onboard, perfectly acceptable, but my machines losses (allocations) seem huge.

To be honest, these HP's often have issues with badly designed boards.
Note; I think HP's are fine business machines, many of my clients use them because of their reliability. I don't have it in for them !

And, your pushing it running Win 7 on that one, yes, I know it does run it, but IMHO XP would work far better.

Often these HP's do run into ram issues due to something on the board, and as you can't do anything in the BIOS there isn't a lot you can do about it.

It's also only a single core so don't expect it to be swift at anything.

If you have no money, go back to XP, that will be snappy with 3 gig of ram, more than that can cause issues.
If you have 50 quid, (I've got them for as little as $40NZ, 20 quid) then a second hand DC7800 will be a far better platform and run 7 more than happily. It will also run 8 gig with Win 7 64 and that really helps it. If you look around you can get a core 2 duo up to 2.8 with this model and as a budget pc it's hard to go past them. The 7900's cost a lot more and just have a 3.0 ghz processor so not really worth the cash difference.

Avoid the 6000 series as their boards are highly bizarre.

tl:dr, not a gaming pc, get something better secondhand.

Quote :

Introduction date Q1'02

Sorry Dan but 2002 called and they want their computer back. You seriously are busy with a computer of TWELVE years old?

It's no answer to your question... But come on.. What do you expect?

Should be on the scrap yard nine years ago.

Cheers guys and i know its an old machine (manufactured late 2005 i think according to some stickers inside the case) but it still works well so i persevere, now back to my problem...

I am now very suspect of the new RAM i bought...

im getting intermittent "164- memory size error" before boot, with the accompanying message

"the following configuration options were automatically updated:

Memory: 3200mb"

*OR*

"Memory: 2816mb"

Regardless of this figure computer > system was still showing 2.75gb usable, so i experimented with all the RAM i have, my existing 2 1gb kingston sticks, the 2 new 1gb sticks, and the 256m and 512m sticks i had in there before, and the installed amount updated itself in the same above screen every time i changed the physical amount and was accurate to the mb, exactly matched, APART from when i introduced either one or both of the new corsair sticks to the system, regardless of which slots i used (i tried every combo i could think of, which took a while!) but physical RAM and detected RAM tally up as expected in every configuration until i start using the new sticks.

I have now got my original 2 1gb kingston sticks in slot 1 and 2 as before, but have switched the 2 new ones round so the one that was in slot 4 is now in slot 3 and visa versa, and it now detects 3200mb installed in the aforementioned "the following configuration options were automatically updated" screen, and still shows 4096mb installed in the bios information screen, BUT, it now shows 3.12GB usable in computer > system, until I reboot, then I get a memory error , 2816 available in the bios screen, and 2.75gb available again in windows, it does that every reboot, and although this kind of behavior would normally indicate a problem with either slot 3 or 4 on the board, the combos of RAM i have tried earlier discounts that possibility, so i am of no doubt that it has to be the RAM.

I have contacted the seller and asked if they are willing to send me 2 more 1gb sticks out, preferably of a different brand, and i will return the ones i originally bought, im awaiting a response, but i don't think that's an unreasonable request, especially as i have offered to pay the postage costs.

EDIT:

After looking on tomshardware I used memtest loaded from a USB stick to test the new memory, The new RAM shows up with no errors, although I can still only get to 3200 mb before I lose anything above that to reserved, 3 sticks of 1gb installed shows as all available, as it's 3072mb, and is under that 3200 threshold, but as soon as I add my 256 chip giving a total of 3328mb I get the screen I mentioned earlier and it updated the available memory as 3200mb, the same if I use 3x1gb and the 512, a physical total of 3584, but 3200 available, it's when I use the 2 new corsair ones together in any slot configuration that I get a 3200mb amount, press f1 to save, reboot, then a 164 memory size error and a total of 2816mb, maybe my rig just doesn't like this memory.

Try to match the speeds as HPs can have an issue with mismatched speeds, the older ones also can have an issue with ram that's too fast for the board.

I'm guessing your new ram is just too 'extreme' for the board sorry.

Yeah thats the conclusion ive come to, maybe not so much the clock speed tho, maybe something to do with CAS timings or something, because even though im running 6400 memory and the board specs indicate a maximum of 5300, i understand that the motherboard will simply underclock it to run at the lower speed, and my original 2 1gb Kingston sticks are also 6400, if anything when it comes to mixing speeds and specs I'm amazed it didn't throw any wobblys when I was running the original 2.75gb, as I had 6400 5300 and 4200 all running together, my additional ram should make for a much better system as it's all the same speed.

I emailed the seller and told him what my issue was, and received the following reply.


"Dear clarkey_1984,

Hi,

We are very sorry that you are experiencing problems. it seems these modules are incompatible with your motherboard as these have been tested and are slightly faster than standard spec.

but no probs I will send immediately and also refund you cost of delivery back to us.

Regard

Adam

- click4memory"

Where he has found additional info that suggests this ram is incompatible with my mobo I don't know, but I'm very happy with his reply and replacement memory being on it's way, as at the moment, the machine is doing exactly what x86 windows would do, yet I'm running x64.

As he said, it's faster than stock 6400 and the old board probably can't cope.

Also, many older HP boards will only see 4 gig, no matter what the OS so you'll never get over that.
DC7600's spring to mind with this issue. Early ddr2 boards generally.

Start saving, newer PC time !

Quote from danthebangerboy :

yet I'm running x64.

No point running 64 bit if the processor (and other components) date from the 32 bit era.

Quote from danthebangerboy :

the machine is doing exactly what x86 windows would do, yet I'm running x64.

I'm actually surprised it runs x64 Windows, I thought that processor was only 32bit. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm not really into hardware these days.

In any case your motherboard likely is the limitation here, it seems that a chunk of RAM is allocated to the on board graphics regardless of whether it is disabled in the BIOS.

You may have reached the zenith of what that PC is going to do.

I assume you're all BMW'd up again by now, so maybe a new PC is next?

Correcting myself.

I just checked the specs, the motherboard should address 4gb.

The graphics card, which I understand from another users forum thread I found only and not an official source, does appear to allocate RAM regardless - but...

According to Intel the GMA 900 allocates a maximum of 128mb RAM ( http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma900/ ).

HP claim the motherboard will support 4gb, but that it should be DDR2 533/400 non-ECC, un-buffered memory ( http://www.findlaptopdriver.co ... lett-packard-09e8h-specs/ ).

And regards 64bit, um ( http://ark.intel.com/products/ ... Hz-512K-Cache-800-MHz-FSB ) - how is x64 Windows even working? hah....

EDIT2: fixed CPU link to cpu with correct fsb speed from screenshot, still same question!

Oh just to clear up the issue on the 512mb of graphics card RAM on your graphics card. This memory is part of the same memory map - the limitation is in the processor & motherboard - it can only physically address 4gb total and that includes the graphics card even if it is a separate non-integrated graphics card because the processor needs to talk to it to load textures and 3d meshes and whatnot into that memory space. That takes away 512mb, and your onboard takes away 128mb. Totaling 640mb, leaving you with 3.375gb addressable RAM space.

There are a couple of CPU's that are 64-bit, 2.8 GHz, Single Core, 800 MHz FSB

Quote from Jakg :

There are a couple of CPU's that are 64-bit, 2.8 GHz, Single Core, 800 MHz FSB

Thanks Jak, I didn't realise that.

From the cache size, I would say this is the 521 - at least I'm not blowing my brains out figuring out how he got Windows running

I still can't figure out the 2.75gb thing though.

See the first post, hardware reserved 1282MB, so 4 gig - 1282 = 2.75 gig.

Why ?, HP had a cheap deal on these boards, which were designed by a idiot !.
Why did HP put a 64 bit processor in a board that can only see 4 gig of memory. ?
A number of HP boards just leave me wondering WTF !

They are designed for business use though, and even 2 gig of ram with XP is more than enough in that context. And you may have wanted to run XP 64 bit, because ????????????????

DC7600, which this seems really similar to, does exactly this, so probably the same board.

6000 series are just bizarre, make no sense on any level. Yet the earlier DC7800 is great for business or gaming. Stick in 8 gig of ram, the best low profile video card available and they are good boxes for most use's. Or, get one cheap, rehouse it in a tower and there's a good basis for a good PC.

tl;dr, Get another box ! There are lot's of great secondhand box's really cheap. Or, go back to XP, 4 gig - whatever, it will still be faster than 7.

Disclaimer: Personally, I think 7 is great for gaming and business, I really don't understand why you wouldn't run it if your PC is fast enough. The above isn't ! It's only a single core which really doesn't cut it these day's.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Oh just to clear up the issue on the 512mb of graphics card RAM on your graphics card. This memory is part of the same memory map - the limitation is in the processor & motherboard - it can only physically address 4gb total and that includes the graphics card even if it is a separate non-integrated graphics card because the processor needs to talk to it to load textures and 3d meshes and whatnot into that memory space. That takes away 512mb, and your onboard takes away 128mb. Totaling 640mb, leaving you with 3.375gb addressable RAM space.

Can you actually calculate it like that? I've had some trouble trying to find a definitive answer to this but it seems to me that VRAM of a dedicated GPU is not mapped to any physical region. Here's some info from my PowerXpress laptop with HD3000 and Radeon 6400M.


This output might seem a bit incomprehensive, but it's actually quite simple to read. Let's start with the Radeon card: the output says that there are three memory regions mapped to that card:

And for the Intel card:

These are the memory blocks the CPU can reach directly. However, the graphics driver reports a VRAM size of 1024 MB for the Radeon.

[ Tech - why is it like that: ]
It is my understanding that the CPU cannot access VRAM - and it makes sense. GPU has its own MMU and VRAM works in a somewhat different fashion than system RAM. Those 256 MB the CPU can see is what is called BARs. When the CPU wants to talk to a PCI-Express device such as graphics card, it writes or reads data from there. This, however, is *not* the GPUs VRAM.
[ /Tech ]

The upshot of all this is that the VRAM size does not count into the physical address space. If you want to check what eats up the address space in Windows, you can check the ranges in use like this:

Quote from http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx :

The Device Manager can answer that question. To check, launch "devmgmt.msc", select Resources by Connection in the View Menu, and expand the Memory node.

Also keep in mind that it is the chipset that creates the physical memory map so if the chipset cannot address more that 4 GBs you're screwed anyway. Some of Gustavo Duarte's blogs cover this topic pretty well.

It is indeed the 521 chip Becky, hardly going to set the world alight in performance terms but the little thing keeps plodding along quite happily, i was going to get the 650 CPU but even for the paltry £10 or so they cost im not sure its worth it on something so old in the first place, i initially thought of getting the 661 as its on the list of supported CPUs for my setup, and is the fastest one, but on reading a few threads on various forums nobodys managed to get one to run properly on this setup, the general consensus was that any supported CPU with a '1' at the end of it is best left well alone on these, plus as ive never attempted to remove or refit a CPU before the chances are id f@@k it up anyway

i would have gone core2 duo, as they are LGA775 as well, but unsupported unfortunately, as that would have been a nice little upgrade.

Im probably wrong, and still living in the days of windows xp or earlier, but i was always told that more ram = better, so doubling the ram from 2gb to 4gb for a tenner seemed well worth it, and i went for x64 purely on the fact that i wanted to use all 4gb, as i know x86 limits you to 3-3.2, which is ironically exactly whats happening now, moreso in fact.

Im sure its the ram being in some way incompatible though, as depending on whether it throws a memory size error or not dictates how much gets hardware reserved, its either around 900mb or around 1.1gb, and if i go down to having only 2gb RAM installed the hardware reserve is a nice 1mb, although it was higher than that until i disabled the onboard GFX, the part i do not understand is WHY it is becoming hardware reserved, as when running 3gb or less RAM i only have 1mb reserved, the system cant 'need' this extra amount for anything, or surely id lose a significant percentage of my RAM all of the time?

Im hoping that the replacement RAM turns up today, i shall report back in due course


And, @Becky, BMW'd, pssh, i wish, ill do well to be mini metro'd up at this rate, i get my license back in 4 days time, but living where i do (ive moved now, im with my other half in a little tiny village outside beccles) im in the vicious circle of being unemployed, and having job prospects massively increased by having a car, but will need a job in the first place to afford said car, and round and round it goes.

EDIT: RAM has arrived, and its made no f@@king difference at all, its exactly the same as my 2 original kingston sticks, apart from these are full height sticks and my originals are the lower profile ones, in fact it skips the mem size error entirely and goes straight to 2.75GB being available now so actually its worse, i've reset the CMOS and loaded the default settings in the bios, its made no difference, i may as well just give up now, time to bite the bullet and buy something from this decade i guess.

Quote :

The upshot of all this is that the VRAM size does not count into the physical address space. If you want to check what eats up the address space in Windows, you can check the ranges in use like this

I've never seen a system behave differently to as I described, when I see it I'll believe it.

@Dan: The system is not allocating more system reserved RAM when there is more than 2gb, it is the same amount - the problem is your motherboard can only address 4gb total, this includes GPU and onboard GPU, contrary to the rebuttal above. If you added 16gb, you would have about 14gb of reserved RAM (except of course it wouldn't work anyway).

I think your problem is that the motherboard has a 32bit addressing on it's I/O controller. Quite why they've made it that way makes no sense, but then HP never worried too much about conforming to anyone elses standards so it's no surprise.

What I can't figure out is why there is 512mb of your RAM being allocated to something - the rest is all explainable. It's something to do with your motherboard, and I don't think you'll be able to change that without changing the motherboard/cpu/ram (and possibly gpu/psu) combination.

About the only thing I would use on your system is the x64 Windows 7 :P.

Good luck with the job hunt. I lived in a village in the arse end of nowhere without a car for years. I used to cycle to the nearest town to get a train and then cycle the other end - the fittest I was in a decade! So it can be done - but I don't think I can handle village life anymore.

If you can find a way to get here, I'm going to throw a house warming soon .