More memory woes...

So I bought 2 x 1Gb memory sticks to replace my 2 x 512Mb sticks that made up my 3Gb of RAM in the P4 HTPC, only to find out that the BIOS could only handle 3Gb. Initially I thought the memory was faulty but the constant 3Gb value that appeared each time I moved the sticks about in different configurations... was a good indication that there was a limit of some sort.

I had to perform a BIOS upgrade to see if I could get more than 3Gb of memory to appear, so I has to find out how to perform a BIOS upgrade... After much, much fiddling about - I could not get a floppy disk and drive to work - I burnt a bootable CD and performed a successful flash with that. Now the PC can see 3.4Gb of memory! It wasn't worth the effort, man! All I am hoping for is that the some of the 3.4Gb is not being used by the GPU - that the GPU memory is addressed separately and that is why only 3.4Gb can be addressed for the rest of the system... I don't even know where the rest is being used...

The two USB flash drives have also arrived and I am using one as the Readyboost drive. I'm not to sure that it has speeded anything up or not - too early for me to tell.. The other USB flash drive has not been used to buffer MediaPortal TVServer yet. I am having a problem with decoding TV with the codecs on the HTPC at the moment, having only installed PDVD9, CCC codec pack, and TMT3. I haven't experimented with all the codecs but PDVD9 for TV gives jerky pictures...

Running total:

• Antec Veris Remote Max HTPC case @ £133
• Pinnacle 7010iX Dual Analog + DTT + Dsat tuner card @ £23
• 2 x 1 Gb PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM @ £20
• Pentium 4 CPU fan @ £15
• SATA DVD rewriter @ £15
  
• HD 2600 Pro GPU @ £23
• Zalman GPU heatsink @ £10
  
• Liteon BD-ROM @ 45
  
• 2 x 1 Gb PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM @ £20
• 2 x 4Gb flash drives @ £10

Total: £314