Maxing memory usage..?

[findlay70]

Hello,
I have the following memory installed on my newbuild -
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800).
with Intel Core i7 920.

Looking at my System Properties, I'm only getting 2.99 GB of Ram.
I ran a performance utility test and this was the result -
Total Physical Memory - 3063MB of RAM
Available Physical Memory - 2282 MB of RAM
In the three slots, it is giving me 2048MB each.

I'm running winXP, the 32 but version. I'm also new at this...

Am i using the full potential of my RAM..? If not, what can be done to use it..?

 

[anamaniac]

Get a 64bit OS.

I run windows 7 x64 myself, went right from XP, and it was a smooth and easy change. I just turned all the eye candy off, and it's all good.
You can still download windows 7 x64 from our favorite Swedish torrent site. "hint"piratetbay"hint

Microsoft is still handing out activation keys, so you can keep it legit.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx
Choose the 64 bit key, and use your windows live info (hotmail or whatever).

XP 64bit is buggy from what I've heard, and windows vistax64 is not for all.

32bit operatoing systems can use 2^32 bytes of data, which is 4,294,967,296 bytes which is actually 4 gigabytes. Due to other limitations, it goes down, to about 3.5 gigs. You video card ram also counts to that amount also (500 MB card would then limit you to 3 gigs or RAM).

a 64 bit OS has the potential for 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bytes of memory. A lot. 17 billions gigs. Or 17 megagigabytes.

Noob or not, anyone can recognize that's a lot more than than a 32 bit OS.

 

[Nils]

He's completely right. A 64 bit os will fix that.
However i got a question for you. I see you have bought 1600 mhz ram. At stock it will normally only run at 1066 mhz on your board. What settings have you changed to get it to 1600 mhz or do those sticks have certain memory profiles so they booted at 1600 mhz from the first time. I would be very pleased if you could help me with these things because i'm thinking about getting an i7 platform too. Just want want to know some things about the memory for sure.

Thanks in advance

 

[findlay70]

@Nils,
the 1600 mhz is stock. No adjustments. If this helps I'm on 2212 NB Freq.
cheers

 

[Nils]

Is it possible to report some settings: base clock, cpu multiplier, memory multiplier?

Thanks