The Micron memory modules are provided on a red PCB with two red passive heatsinks (heatspreader), which are supposed to enhance the memory cooling also with higher frequencies and/or higher voltages. Thus one achieves on the one hand better results with overclocking and on the other hand a longer life-time, whereby Crucial by the way grants lifelong warranty (Limited Lifetime Warranty) for the buyer (all informations to manufacturer conditions are of course without guarantee by ocinside.de). Furthermore, these modules have the Enhanced Performance Profile – EPP, which is helpful to get good timings and frequencies for easy overclocking on motherboards with EPP support.
Another feature are 16 red light emitting diodes atop each memory module, which shows the active RAM traffic, to see the activity of the memory modules at any time.
Close to the pins within the lower range of the PCB are 8 further red LEDs to lighting the PC. All in all a cool feature for a modded PC or modded Mac.
These Crucial Ballistix Tracer Red modules illuminates nearly the whole PC and this give the PC a special touch …
Not 4GB on booting, but only 3GB in the BIOS or Windows …
Another special thing is the 4 GB size of the memory modules. “At that time” with Windows 98, Win95, etc. it was necessary to clear the first hurdles with more than 512 MB with an easy trick. In Windows 98 operating system it was necessary to add MaxFileCache=512000 in the [vcache] section of the System.ini to get it booting.
In the meanwhile the RAM size is fortunately much higher, because with 32-bit operating systems like e.g. Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista the first things are starting approximately with more than 2GB. 2GB can be used both, for the operating system, and for some programs. But starting from 3GB or starting from values between 3 GB and 3.5GB the memory management on 32-bit operating systems is unfortunately rather badly. Even the activation of Memory Hole and/or Memory Remapping in the BIOS and entries of /PAE (Physical Address Extension) or /3GB in the Boot.ini doesn’t help WinXP to the full 4GB in a fast AMD PC.
The only thing which helps, is an update to a new 64-bit operating system like e.g. Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows Server editions, or 64-bit Vista edition, which supports different memory sizes. Windows Vista 64bit Home Basic supports for example a capacity up to 8GB, Home Premium 16GB and Vista Ultimate, Vista Business, as well as Vista Enterprise supports sizes of more than 128GB.
So don’t worry, if your PC just boots with 3183MB, 3184MB, 3.1GB, 3.2GB or similar RAM values into Windows XP. Your memory is not defective, but it is because of the memory support (motherboard or operating system). The exact memory capacity depends on different factors such as hardware used below 4GB and may vary depending upon PC.