ram shows up in bios but not in properties 1 person needs an answerI do too

Properties of what? How much ram is installed?

Win XP 32 Bit usually has problems detecting more than 3 Gigs of RAM. If you have more than 3 Gigs of RAM, consider upgrading to Windows 7 (64 Bit).

On Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:48:07 +0000, Shawn Eary wrote: > Win XP 32 Bit usually has problems detecting more than 3 Gigs of RAM. No, not really. First, the issue is with all 32-bit client versions of Windows, notjust XP. Second, it has nothing to do with "detecting" it. Here's mystandard post on the subject: All 32-bit client versions of Windows (not just Vista/XP/7) have aaddress space (64-bit versions can use much more). That's thetheoretical upper limit beyond which you can not go. But you can't use the entire address space. Even though you have a4GB address space, you can only use *around* 3.1GB of RAM. That'sbecause some of that space is used by hardware and is not available tothe operating system and applications. The amount you can use varies, depending on what hardware you have installed, but canrange from as little as 2GB to as much as 3.5GB. It's usually around3.1GB. Note that the hardware is using the address *space*, not the actualRAM itself. If you have a greater amount of RAM, the rest of the RAMgoes unused because there is no address space to map it to. > If you have more than 3 Gigs of RAM, consider upgrading to Windows 7 (64 Bit). That sentence should be modified to read "If you have more than 3 Gigsof RAM *and* the applications you run can make effective use of morethan 3GB, consider upgrading to Windows 7 (64 Bit) Only few people running Windows XP can make effective use of so muchRAM. How much RAM you need for good performance is *not* aone-size-fits-all situation. You get good performance if the amount ofRAM you have keeps you from using the page file significantly, andthat depends on what apps you run. Most people running a typical rangeof business applications under XP find that somewhere around 512MBworks well, others need more. Almost anyone will see poor performancewith less than 256MB. Some people, particularly those doing thingslike editing large photographic images, can see a performance boost byadding even more than 512MB--sometimes much more. If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memorywill decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will donothing for you. Go tohttp://billsway.com/notes%5Fpublic/winxp%5Ftweaks/ and downloadWinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your page file usage. That shouldgive you a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, howmuch more. Ken Blake