ASUS ION AT3N7A-1 motherboard cannot use more than 768MB RAM

keropi · Post by **keropi** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:24 pm

Hello!

Yesterday I bought ASUS's AT3N7A-1 , an Atom330 + ION GPU mITX mobo. It has 2 DDR2 ram slots and supports up to 4GB of RAM... BUT it cannot actually use them!!!! The BIOS says:
4096MB Installed, 768MB usable .... booting windows only gives 768MB of RAM! Further more using only 1x2GB stick still produces the same 768MB usable out of 2048! Upgrading to latest BIOS did not help ... Using different ram make did not help either...
Anyone seen anything like that???

naitsirk · Post by **naitsirk** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 11:55 am

Hallois!

I'm thinking about buying the same mobo..

Have you gotten any answers for the RAM issue anywhere or found the solution? Tried updating bios?

keropi · Post by **keropi** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:34 pm

udating BIOS, clrearing CMOS, trying different RAM combos.... nothing worked...
Tomorrow I call ASUS support, I will let you know

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:52 pm

Have you tried enabling Memory Remap in the BIOS?

DanceMan · Post by **DanceMan** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 8:11 pm

That's very odd. The approx 3G 32-bit OS limit is an operating system limit, but you're getting this in the bios. Years ago there were issues with chipsets having ram limits that caused boards not to see all the ram installed if the limits per slot were exceeded (eg. Intel's BX chipset in the PII/3 era and many others at that time). That was usually due to the use of sticks of ram containing a smaller number of higher density chips than the chipset could handle. But I can't imagine this applying to your situation.

Have you gone through the bios line by line to look for any setting that might affect this? If it's on a setting like "Set Fail Safe Defaults", try a more agressive setting. Or the reverse.

enrique · Post by **enrique** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:22 am

Hm, I have an AT3N7A-1 too with 2GB ram, and my BIOS detects 1792mb (2GB-256mb used by gfx card).

The only difference I can see is that my BIOS is version 0213, maybe you should try to downgrade?

d3fiant · Post by **d3fiant** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 1:59 am

I have just bought the AT3N7A-I and have the same issues, no matter what memory I put in I can only see 1GB less the shared gfx memory. I have tried several sets of memory including those on the supported list to no avail.

I had the problem with bios 213 and upgrading to v215 has not fixed it. I have reset the cmos, had the battery out.

I'm no n00b, have been building systems for a long time but this is very frustrating

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 2:04 am

rpsgc wrote:Have you tried enabling Memory Remap in the BIOS?

...

d3fiant · Post by **d3fiant** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 2:23 am

cannot find memory remap as an option in the bios, could it be known as something else?

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 2:49 am

I don't know then. Maybe the memory sticks are to blame, or a BIOS bug because not everyone is having that problem. I just read an user review of this board and he had 4GB (3,25GB usable) working just fine (BIOS 0213).

Try downgrading the BIOS.

d3fiant · Post by **d3fiant** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:51 am

downgrading the bios has had no effect, I've got a feeling this mobo is going back

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:54 am

Memory used:
2x2GB Teamgroup Elite DDR2-800

Arvo · Post by **Arvo** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 5:46 am

That problem seems have some connection with various physical devices address space mapping. I found one solution, probably no help, but may give some ideas:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id= ... uage=en-us

d3fiant · Post by **d3fiant** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 6:29 am

I also noticed I have the fan that wa supposed to NOT be on the retail versions of this mobo...

fan replacement

d3fiant · Post by **d3fiant** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:48 am

rpsgc wrote:

Memory used:
2x2GB Teamgroup Elite DDR2-800

out of interest do you have the old or new fan shown in the link above? Just wondering if there is something else different between our mobos?

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:02 am

d3fiant wrote:out of interest do you have the old or new fan shown in the link above? Just wondering if there is something else different between our mobos?

I don't actually own the motherboard, it was just a picture from an user review.

Here is a picture of the fan though:

5 years on spcr

lakisfm1 · Post by **lakisfm1** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 12:14 pm

Excuse me if a bit out of topic.

I think of buying this motherboard but i badly need WakeOnLAN .
I have read the UsersManual but there is only a Wake on PCIE event.

The AT3GC-I model (non-ION) has PCI-E event AND WOL in the bios for the network adapter.

Can anyone please confirm if WOL on onboard network adapter is supported in AT3N7A-I ?

Thanks in advance!

d3fiant · Post by **d3fiant** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:14 pm

I have seen no evidence of WOL in my travels through the BIOS which would suggest not, unless its the wake on PCIe which would make sense since the mobo has no PCIe slot and the ethernet is the only PCIe component I can think of

lakisfm1 · Post by **lakisfm1** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 9:35 pm

Thanks for the answer d3fiant , i though so too ,
but anyone here tried it for sure ? is it the PCIE ?

d3fiant · Post by **d3fiant** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:00 pm

not me, mine is going back due to its inability to see anything above 1GB of memory and I'm not alone

enrique · Post by **enrique** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:52 am

lakisfm1 wrote:Excuse me if a bit out of topic.

I think of buying this motherboard but i badly need WakeOnLAN .
I have read the UsersManual but there is only a Wake on PCIE event.

The AT3GC-I model (non-ION) has PCI-E event AND WOL in the bios for the network adapter.

Can anyone please confirm if WOL on onboard network adapter is supported in AT3N7A-I ?

Thanks in advance!

I have WOL working, I just enabed Wake on PCIe event.

lakisfm1 · Post by **lakisfm1** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 2:54 am

THANK YOU ENRIQUE!!.

Now i (so others) only have to wait for the bugfixed firmware

Rushdie · Post by **Rushdie** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 1:38 pm

What happens if you disable all non-critical components in the bios? Such as sata, audio, ethernet, usb, rs232 (and other legacy stuff)? Does that do anything?

lakisfm1 · Post by **lakisfm1** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 12:08 am

AT3N7A-I 0216 BIOS fixes 768MB bug. Let me know if all ok now...

foobert · Post by **foobert** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:19 pm

Is 3.3GB "usable" the correct amount that should be showing in the bios when 4GB is installed? I'm seeing the same thing, and not sure if that's the implied 32-bit limit, or if the BIOS should be claiming all 4GB (minus GPU reservation) is "usable"?

rpsgc wrote: picture w/ 3.3 GB of memory when 4GB is installed

ASUS ION AT3N7A-1 motherboard cannot use more than 768MB RAM

ASUS ION AT3N7A-1 motherboard cannot use more than 768MB RAM

Getting back on topic of "Usable Memory"