Can not use all of the RAM

[Ralphxyz]

>I am getting a message during boot that the RAM is limited to 256 by the BIOS.

>The box is a 5 year old DELL I do not have it with me at the time so I cannot give the model.

>This box has run in a hosted site for the past 5 years and never saw this during reboots.

>Where do I start? Any suggestions on where to look?

>There are two 256 sticks of RAM that came from DELL five years ago so it is not a RAM issue. Either stick works for >booting if the other is removed so apparently the memory is good on both.

>Thanks for the help and pointers.

>Ralph

I hope this does not get posted twice.

There is no Memory settings in the BIOS!! No NT settings nothing!

Here are the specs for the computer:

DELL Poweredge 600SC
Intel P4 1800mhz
BIOS Version: A02
Service Tag: HVY2Z11
System Memory: 512 MB ECC DDR


All of the Memory is detected correctly in the BIOS setup!!

 

[Nodsu]

You have set the machine to NT compatibility mode in BIOS. Go to BIOS setup and see some OS installation or Windows NT setting.

 

[Tedster]

read now: https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic65114.html

 

[Ralphxyz]

There is no memory settings in the BIOS setup!!

All of the memory is detected in BIOS setup correctly!!

This is not new RAM it has been working for five years!!!

Thanks for any help.

Ralph

 

[Nodsu]

Did I say "memory setting"?? Please pay attention!

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=pes_bios&message.id=1821
http://support.dell.com/support/top.../en/document?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&dn=1082724

 

[Ralphxyz]

Did I say "memory setting"?? Please pay attention!

You have set the machine to NT compatibility mode in BIOS. Go to BIOS setup and see some OS installation or Windows NT setting.

I'am sorry you spoke to fast and I miss understood you.

You are absolutely correct there is in the BIOS setup a 'OS Install mode' option. Thank you very much.

For clarification this is a remanent of NT4 requirements (remember the reason for sp1 for NT4, apparently the developers of NT4 turned the test servers off every night and never let them run continously, there was a massive memory overflow causing the server to crash if left on). Anyway apparently these same developers never imagined a computer with more then 256mb of memory so some BIOSs of the time used this work around.

Thank you once again for your correct answer and also your promptness.

Ralph