For anybody who has installed 4gb of memory on their machine and...

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
K

ktheripper

Distinguished
Jan 23, 2008
19
0
18,510
You don't understand why your OS "doesn't see" all 4gb of the memory, instead of starting the "4 millionth thread on this" please read this Microsoft article that explains the issue in detail. If it still doesn't make sense, please search the forum or google the problem. I'm posting this as I tried to find answer to a separate memory problem and all I found was a gazillion threads on this matter.

This article answers your questions.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/en-us

Mods, can you please take this thread or one like it and turn it into a sticky? If you must persist, here's an article in regards to PAE that may allow you to get closer to see 4gb in your 32bit OS if you must.

For anybody interested in PAE check out.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366796.aspx

(If you don't undertand what PAE what that means, please read the article.)
 
Basically it's saying that the hardware I/O needs to keep a certian amount of system memory for itself.The amount of memory it uses depends on the hardware in the computer and how it's configured.

Dahak
 
Haha, I kid...I kid. Because it is posted so much, you would think that people would actually have the attention span to AT LEAST make it to page 2 (because you know it gets asked about once a week) to look up an answer. But do they...NOOOOOO... Do they even google it? NOOOOO...

I agree with the sticky but I think people go right to posting and do no research what so ever. It is sad though...it is like watching lemmings march over a cliff but annoying because you can't prevent it.
 
At very least maybe we should link those threads to a sticky or thread at the very least instead of spoon feeding everytime.
 
I don't think a sticky should imply that pae is useful on xp and vista to go beyond 4G, because it isn't. On xp/sp2 and vista, pae is used only for dep support
 
hmmm the question is, do current AMD based offerings such as the x2 and phenom support the PAE hardware abilities? I think it should, due to how long ago the Pent pro came out.
 
It is cruel irony isn't it? Just pretend it is the elephant in the room...no one talk about it...we can only refer to this as "it" or "that thing that gets posted twice a week."

Doh...I said it...I said it again...thats two its...

 
Here's the answer for any morons that post because their 'precious new 4gb build doesn't see all 4 gb'.

RMA whole computer and go to www.dell.com
 
cyberjock, why do you call them morons? It is a very natural thing to wonder why this happens. Not all people is this world know the architecture of a pc
 
This is why when I ordered my laptop and was asked to pay and extra $200 for 4GB of RAM over the 3GB, I said no. I probably wont run 64-bit OS for one reason: driver support. Its just not there 100%...yet.
 




i think what he's trying to say is...if you don't know this, and still insist on building your own...well....
seriously! it even says this on the box your ram comes in, as well as your 32 bit os!

remember that far side comic, with the kid trying to enter the "school for the gifted" by pushing with all his might on the door clearly marked "pull"?
i believe that was the sentiment expressed. if you can't read/accept instructions (or even the freakin' box your components came in!!!), dude, you're gettin' a dell.
 
Mods, can you please take this thread or one like it and turn it into a sticky? If you must persist, here's an article in regards to PAE that may allow you to get closer to see 4gb in your 32bit OS if you must.
Click to expand...

We already have about two dozen better candidates for a sticky about this. So this was basically a waste.

Unless I and about ten million geeks are wrong about this PAE will NOT get you any more RAM on a MS consumer OS. Server, yes, consumer no, not anymore at least. It was causing driver problems so MS killed it, or so the story goes.

If you want to use your 4 gig on XP or Vista go 64 bit. Period.

BTW Vista, after sp1, is going to report 4 gig in system properties on 32 bit. You won't actually have any more use of your 4 gig then before but the system will show it in properties.
 


This is simply not true. I run a 32-bit operating system and have access to the full 4GB of RAM in my system. However, if we are talking about 32 bit versions of XP SP2 or Vista, you will indeed not be able to access all 4 GB.

PAE was added to processors way back in the days of the Pentium Pro. That and a decent operating system is all you need to access 4 GB or more of memory. Indeed, even some of Microsoft's 32-bit OS's support 8 GB or more; 2000 Advanced Server, 2000 Datacenter Server, Server 2003, etc. Not exactly what you want for your desktop computer, but it shows that you do NOT need a 64-bit OS to access the full 4 GB (or more) of memory. Please stop spreading this misinformation.
 
How about a link to what users can expect if upgrading to a 64 bit os. What incompatabilities, and what shortcomings can we expect?

Some drivers, some older hardware...I'd like to see an article on just what exactly are the current pitfalls and when can we reasonably expect these issues to be ironed out.

I'm ready to adopt 64 bit now, but it would be nice to know what to expect beforehand. Especially for non-experts.

And what about sp3, how will that change the current landscape?
 


Come on in, the water is fine.

 
(2) XP x32 uses each permutation to address a byte,
not a 32-bit word with 4 bytes per word (8 bits per byte);

(3) this was an unfortunate design choice, because
good systems programmers prefer to use an address
to point to itself, which would have created a
16 Gigabyte address space, i.e. 4 Billion x 4 -or-
2^32 addresses x 4 bytes per address;
Click to expand...

That is a rather common way to address memory, one address = one byte. And it is not something Microsoft chose to do. That is how the hardware in a pc works
 
At the very beginning XP was allowed to go beyond 4GB, with the use of PAE. With PAE you still have one address = one byte.

Microsoft changed how PAE worked with the introduction of SP2, because of the issue with too many badly written drivers
 



Okay, what's your OS? I've ran both versions of XP 32-bit, Home and Pro, as well as many Linux distros with 4GB of RAM, and they all only said 3.2GB was available.
 


You need to have hardware support for more than 4GB of address space and memory remapping. In Linux you then enable PAE ...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom