Total Memory Discrepency

The only thought I have, is there a reserved block of memory in BIOS settings?

Also, which version of Windows?

Windows 9X / Me has issues when over 511MB of RAM is installed.

Chas

Windows 2000 Professional is the Host OS. Virtual PC is installed and Windows XP is setup as the Guest os inside of it.

I looked through the BIOS and didn't see anything that looked suspicious, and I removed all but one memory module, and then switched modules, this had no effect. There was always 468KB less in Task Manager than seen by POST.

This may sound foolish but here goes... Some machines do not have separate video memory or utilize shadow ram (using some of ram for BIOS and video functions rather than going to the slower rom chips). Windows only reports memory after the system has captured any shadow or shared use. Therefore you will find descrepencies if either case is true. CLUE: watch for a message saying video using XXX amount of memory after the POST or check the bios for memory shadowing.

regards
rick

Some of the information displayed during POST goes by so fast

I don't have ime to read it. Is there a way to control the screen from scrolling during POST?

During POST, hit the Pause/Break key. We're only talking about 468K of memory: Who gives a shit?

Pressing the Pause|Break key did stop the scroll. Thank you. "Its only 486KB ...", you are right, I shouldn?t be spending unnecessary time on 2% of the problem.