Well, I accidentally upgraded my lap top Ram to 4gig without knowing my system would only see 3gig.

Yes, I have searched various websites to find the solution(utilizing 4gig ram) and there were quite a few explanations.

However, since I'm a green, I couldn't puzzle out how to.

So, please tell me(if anyone knows) how to get my system to see all available ram.

If I can't use 4gig ram, should I degrade it to usable 3gig?

Thanks

J.C

The 3, 3.5, or other under 4GB memory limitation is more a problem of the way your mainboard is build then a problem of the operating system. I normal IA-32 design the last 1GB of your memory space is dedicated to addressing internal devices. Even if you would run a 64-bit operating system you will not have much use for the lost memory.

There are some mainboard manufacturers who have special tools to relocate this "lost" memory to higher addresses, but with this come also less compatibly. The actual available memory is not for all the same, somebody with a 512mb VGA card would have less then somebody with a 128mb VGA and somebody with all PCI slots full will have less then somebody who uses 1 or none PCI cards. Also on some mainboard it helps to disable ports you not use, say MIDI, Parallel, serial ....etc (But this has only effect on some chipsets, with VIA chipsets you unlikely see any changes)