|
Too much RAM?!
|
|
My friend recently bought a new machine from Dell. It came with a quad core processor, 4GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX with 768MB VRAM, and WIndows XP. He told me that Windows, however, did not recognize the 4GB of RAM ( he told me under Task Manager, the total physical memory reported is slightly less than 3GB). Does anyone know why/hpw can this happen? I've heard that 32bit OS can't address more than 4GB, but it doesn't make sense... the OS only recognized 3GB... Could it be some hardware failure, or....? |
|
Re: Too much RAM?!
|
|
Windows maps some memory addresses to other things such as your video card, making it so it can't *normally* address a full 4GB of ram. There are some ways around this however, such as using "Physical Address Extension"( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension ) which is supported by some processors, or "Address Windowing Extensions"( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Windowing_Extensions ). One way in windows to enable Physical Adress Extension is to add the "/PAE" flag to your boot.ini file if your processor supports this. |
|
Re: Too much RAM?!
|
| Actually all current 32bit operating systems (that includes vista) can only see upto 3GB of memory and if you have more then that the rest is going to be dedicated to the operating system so to have the remaining 1GB of memory to show your friend needs a 64bit operating system (either XPpro x64 or any 64bit version of vista home premium or better) |
|
Re: Too much RAM?!
|
| @demonix01 will enabling the PAE flag at boot.ini 'reveal' the 1GB RAM to the OS? |
|
Re: Too much RAM?!
Link |
by
on 2007-08-29 22:51:57 |
All 32 bit OS will say 3.25 GB or RAM at most cause i currently have 6 gb of RAM on my gamer and when i had 32 bit Vista Ulti it read only 3.25 and a friend told me to install 64 bit and it works like a charm ^__^  |
|
Re: Too much RAM?!
|
| can someone tell me where to "download" 64 bit installer? (aside from microsoft) |
|
Re: Too much RAM?!
|
|
You mean the pirated one? :P The 64bit Windows XP Professional (Pro Only) has been released a year ago (or more?)... buy and install it :) not promoting... just suggestion... The codename's r3ck0rd. Find me in my Facebook Profile Page, or in my blog.
|
|
Re: Too much RAM?!
Link |
by
 
on 2007-09-05 08:38:47 |
32-bit can't use 4GB. They're restricted to 3GB or less. 64-bit can go more. Of course, that'll have it's limits  |
|
Re: Too much RAM?!
Link |
by
on 2007-09-05 16:07:12 |
|
Well it isnt even a patch it's an edition of windows that you will have to pay extra for but it's basically future proof. |
|
Re: Too much RAM?!
Link |
by
on 2007-09-05 16:35:55 |
|
well, there is a new windows coming in the near future introducing a new file system which is supposed to be way faster. I heard/read about |