H61M-S2PV -2 x bios settings - help required please.

[Purgatory]

Hi Guys
need some assistance please as follows - I use the modest H61M - S2PV Mobo.  (Windows 7)

If I call up 'system' it correctly shows that 4Gb ram is installed - however 3.48Gb is shown as usable.  I would expect this 'loss' if I was using the on-board graphics, BUT, I have a nvidia PCIe card installed. Accordingly I went into the bios to make sure that this was being  recognised.

At the moment the setting is at AUTO. Should I in fact have this set to disabled (assuming that disable refers to the on-board graphics?)

The 2nd question relates to the sata mode setting. Presently this is set to IDE. As I understand things - the more desirable setting is AHCI. If I use this setting, the three hard drives (internal) then become 'removable', and a remove icon appears in systray. I am sure that other PC's I have used and are set to AHCI do not have this additional (annoying) icon displayed. Have I missed a further setting? etc, or is there another answer to make the icon disappear.
Thanks in advance for your much appreciated help.

[autotech]

Disable onboard graphics.

if you are using platter drives set to SATA. If using a SSD set to AHCI.  I have 2 SSD and I get no icon. could be you installed the software that comes with it.

[Purgatory]

Thanks for your response - I have changed / set on-board graphics to disabled. Surprisingly this did not alter the reported fitted / usable info at all.
So, that's one theory that's proved to be incorrect!

I presume that when you said "if you are using platter drives - set to SATA" you meant IDE.
Thanks for your thoughts

[autotech]

Are you using windows 7 32 bit?

[Purgatory]

Hi Autotech

yes I can confirm that I am using the 32 bit version of Win 7
regards

[autotech]

With windows 32 bit it always has ram reserved for system and that is why you are only reading 3.48. The rest is reserved for system use and wont show in windows only in bios.

[Purgatory]

Thanks for the information - you learn something every day
Is this attributable to just gigabyte motherboards, or this this now a general rule/standard?
Thanks again

[autotech]

It is an operating system limitation. If you use 64 bit you will see all ram.