RAM not beeing used

Hi im having trouble with my lappy with the ram some of it not beeing used i had x2 2mb ram sticks and it was only using 2.92mb of ram. I have now put in 8mb of ram (x2 4mb sticks) i know there ok cuz i baught them from crucial.com.

the slots must be ok cuz before it was using 2.92mb with x2 2mb sticks. Could it be limitation of xp professional ? i know that 32bit is 4GB but still its not even using 3mb of ran just under.

Any suggestions?

P.S = its the same ram usage before and after i changed so could it be a computer setting?.

Thanks in advance!,
Zoldun

 

WinXP 32-bit can only utilize about 3.5GB (not mb) as you posted. Subtract the RAM used by your graphics chip and you'll probably have about 2.92 GB of usable RAM. Any RAM over 4GB cannot and will not be used by the system. You bought more than you can possibly use.

 

Ok thanks for the infomation helped alot ill have to upgrade then.

 

Simple, if it were 64-bit WinXP you would be able to use the 8GB of RAM you bought. You may not be able to upgrade to 64-bit if your CPU cannot utilize a 64-bit OS. WinXP 64-bit requires different drivers and can be very fussy about which software it will use.

 

To find out if your computer can run Win7 64-bit download the Windows upgrade advisor file below.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/upgrade-advisor