Can I have more than 4GB of RAM with Windows 10 32-bit?

[MarkHatesBSOD]

Specs:
ASRock M3A770DE AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon II X3 445 Processor
Radeon HD 5670 512MB graphics card
4GB RAM (for some reason it says 3.12GB usable)
32-bit Windows 10

My motherboard says it can support 16GB of RAM, but apparently Windows 8 and before can only handle 4GB on 32-bit. Is this the same for Windows 10? In my task manager I'm typically using around 25% of my CPU and 80-95% of my RAM and my computer runs extremely slow when a lot of stuff is opened. So if I'm correct, upgrading the RAM is pretty much a necessity over all other upgrades.

Side question: sometimes my computer locks up where everything literally freezes and my sound goes "bzzzzzzz" if something is playing when it freezes. If I leave it like that it'll eventually just abruptly stop the computer completely. I always thought that the culprit was my CPU overheating, but perhaps it's my lack of adequate RAM?

So my question is, do I need to move to 64-bit before I upgrade my RAM? And if so, will there be a way to do it without having to do a factory reset on my hard drive and move all of my data over?

Thanks

 

[popatim]

No. 32bit limits addressable ram to 4gb max. Its not the motherbd or the cpu but the OS that is the limiting factor.
This includes everything on the motherbd including your graphics card so dont go installing a 4gb GPU.

You have the option to use any ram above 4gb as something else such as a ram drive though.

Plus your key is valid for the 32bit or 64bit install if you dont mind reinstalling everything as there is no other migration path for goinng from 32b to 64b.

 

[rohan305]

Reinstall windows using 64 bit .
32 bit limits your hardware's functionality .

 

[MarkHatesBSOD]

No. 32bit limits addressable ram to 4gb max. Its not the motherbd or the cpu but the OS that is the limiting factor.
This includes everything on the motherbd including your graphics card so dont go installing a 4gb GPU.

You have the option to use any ram above 4gb as something else such as a ram drive though.

Plus your key is valid for the 32bit or 64bit install if you dont mind reinstalling everything as there is no other migration path for goinng from 32b to 64b.

Thanks. So when I do the upgrade how do I go about downloading Windows 10 with my key? I simply downloaded the installer from Windows 7 and it did everything for me, I don't have a key that I know of. And will I need to put it on a disc and boot from it?

 

[popatim]

with win10 upgrade it reads your current key from the registry (pirates be warned) and sets it to invalidate in 30 days (i think), scans your hardware, and creates a custom win10 key that is stored on MS servers/cloud. Once you've update you can just install win10 64b as full full/fresh install using the custom installation option instead of the upgrade one.. No key is needed since win10 will search the cloud and find your existing key there based on your hardware. I have yet to actually test this myself bhut that is how its supposed to work. You might want to use a key finder and write your win10 key down (I would) because even the great MS goofs it up all the time.

You create the win10 media Following this guide Be 200% certain you get the right version!

You upgrade 7 to 10 Following this guide.

After your first upgrade, you have 30 days to decide if you would rather keep win7. After that, as far as I know, MS will invalidate your win7 key on their servers since it was used to upgrade to 10.

 

[MarkHatesBSOD]

with win10 upgrade it reads your current key from the registry (pirates be warned) and sets it to invalidate in 30 days (i think), scans your hardware, and creates a custom win10 key that is stored on MS servers/cloud. Once you've update you can just install win10 64b as full full/fresh install using the custom installation option instead of the upgrade one.. No key is needed since win10 will search the cloud and find your existing key there based on your hardware. I have yet to actually test this myself bhut that is how its supposed to work. You might want to use a key finder and write your win10 key down (I would) because even the great MS goofs it up all the time.

You create the win10 media Following this guide Be 200% certain you get the right version!

You upgrade 7 to 10 Following this guide.

After your first upgrade, you have 30 days to decide if you would rather keep win7. After that, as far as I know, MS will invalidate your win7 key on their servers since it was used to upgrade to 10.

So what you're saying is that I can probably just upgrade from 10 32-bit to 10 64-bit with the Media Creation Tool Microsoft provides? Maybe enter the generic product key and it won't matter because it's saved on my motherboard that I'm authentic?

 

[fjlj]

I feel as though this was answered "well enough"

But the blaming of the OS for the 4gb limitation is well... Wrong...(per se)

It has nothing to do with any specific operating system... But the "version/edition" of any operating system...

Any 32bit operating system has a "limitation" of only being able to use "4gb" of ram... The reason behind why is actually very simple, and is right there in the title..

32 bit vs 64 bit...

What does it mean to be 32 bit
It means that you are going to be operating on an addressing schema of 32 bits...
0x00000000-0xFFFFFFFF

these are all the "possible" memory addresses in any given address space.. More importantly on a hardware level, this means that only up to 0xFFFFFFFF addresses are possible to point to sections of memory..

That number in decimal is..
4294967295

Which is... 4GB...

Now... On a 64 bit system.. You are operating on an address schema of
0x0000000000000000-0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

that number in decimal is
18446744073709551615

Which is...
16EB OR
16,777,215 TB