More than max memory for Motherboard?

streittk · 02-01-2008, 04:03 PM

I did an oops. Needed to upgrade the memory for my desktop. Was only running with a 256 stick and a 128 stick with Windows XP. Computer runs great and I figured why not upgrade the RAM and prepare for Vista.

I bought two 1GB stcks, PC-2700 DDR, 128x4. Installed on VIA KM266 motherboard with AMD Athlon. Everything works great, but dummy me, never noticed the numbers until now, a week later. Both Windows and the BIOS only sees 990 MB of RAM. I took one of the two sticks out and then it would only see 479 MB.

I checked the manual that came with the motherboard, and I must have read the table wrong in that it looks like banks 0 and 1 will support 1GB together and banks 2 and 3 will support 1 GB. In other words, the only way to have 2GB is to use two DDR sticks with two SDR sticks.

As I said, the computer seems to run fine. So right now it seems the only issue is I have wasted RAM.

Two questions: 1) Is his going to mess up my computer after a while, or is it okay to run it this way? 2) Is there a way to update the BIOS or something that would allow it to recognize the full 2 GBs?

02-01-2008, 04:03 PM	#1 (permalink)
streittk Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 4 OS: Vista Home Premium	More than max memory for Motherboard? I did an oops. Needed to upgrade the memory for my desktop. Was only running with a 256 stick and a 128 stick with Windows XP. Computer runs great and I figured why not upgrade the RAM and prepare for Vista. I bought two 1GB stcks, PC-2700 DDR, 128x4. Installed on VIA KM266 motherboard with AMD Athlon. Everything works great, but dummy me, never noticed the numbers until now, a week later. Both Windows and the BIOS only sees 990 MB of RAM. I took one of the two sticks out and then it would only see 479 MB. I checked the manual that came with the motherboard, and I must have read the table wrong in that it looks like banks 0 and 1 will support 1GB together and banks 2 and 3 will support 1 GB. In other words, the only way to have 2GB is to use two DDR sticks with two SDR sticks. As I said, the computer seems to run fine. So right now it seems the only issue is I have wasted RAM. Two questions: 1) Is his going to mess up my computer after a while, or is it okay to run it this way? 2) Is there a way to update the BIOS or something that would allow it to recognize the full 2 GBs?