When too much RAM is installed, the computer sees less.
Installing too much random access memory on a computer does no harm to the machine. However, extra RAM goes unrecognized and is unusable. Your computer will only see the maximum amount of RAM it can handle.
RAM Goes Unrecognized
Too much RAM in a system will simply go unrecognized in most cases. There are two ways this happens, either by having more RAM than the machine itself is capable of handling, or by having more RAM than the operating system can recognize.
When Extra RAM is Not "Seen"
If you check Basic Input/Output System (BIOS), you will see how much RAM is being recognized by your computer. BIOS is accessed by hitting a specific key, usually F1, F2, or F10, when the computer first boots up, before the Windows start-up screen appears. What happens is, the maximum RAM the computer is capable of working with is shown. Often, before getting into BIOS, the computer gives an error message warning that not all of the RAM is usable. If the problem is not the computer itself, but the operating system, then BIOS still shows all of your RAM. The operating system, however, will not.
64-Bit Versions of Windows
Different versions of Windows have their own maximum RAM amounts. In Windows 7, the maximum is 4 gigabytes. For Vista, the limit is 3 GB. Upgrading to a 64-bit version expands the amount of RAM your operating system is capable of working with. A machine running Windows Vista, for example, with 4 GB of RAM only uses 3 GB.
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