Re: Poor Performance With 4GB Memory

Tech-Archive recommends: Speed Up your PC by fixing your registry

On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:42:16 -0800, "Victek" <Victek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I recently added 2GB of memory to my P4P800 for a total of 4GB, and
immediately began experiencing visible performance problems most
noticeably in games. After much troubleshooting, I discovered that
setting Maximum Memory in System Configuration (msconfig.exe) to 3300MB
(I didn't test every 1MB below the limit, by the way), down from the
limit of 3328 (using 1 or 2MB less than this still resulted in
performance problems...) restored performance to pre-4GB levels. I'm
aware of x86 architecture not being able to utilize 4GB of memory, so
this isn't about that. Additional oddities include PCI Latency Timer (of
all things...) effecting performance and lower memory timings being more
stable than high... What's going on here? Is there any way to avoid
adding a memory limit?

Windows Vista with SP1 (32-bit)
Asus P4P800 with BIOS 1021.006
Pentium 4 3.0E at 3.75 (250FSB)
Corsair PC3200 4GB (4x1)
GeForce 7800 GS at 520/725
Audigy 2


--
You could:
Confirm that the motherboard detects all 4 gigs in the BIOS.
Turn off silent & quick boot options in the BIOS so memory will be tested
during boot up.
Check the Asus website for a BIOS update.
Run the Vista "Windows Experience Index" with 2 gigs, then 4 gigs installed
to see if the OS confirms the problem.
Make sure virtual memory (paging file) is still set to the recommended
amount (it increases when you add ram)

All very odd tests when one has yet to determine if the memory is any
good or if the mobo would accept it all. You DID notice that the OP's
problems began after installing more memory, right????
.

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