4 gigs in a 32-bit OS is a waste?

[xColdSteelx]

I was going to upgrade from 2 gigs of dual ch. system memory to 4 gigs until a friend told me that 32-bit OS's like my Vista 32-bit reserve part of memory for system hardware like the BIOS. He says Windows will only report between 2.75 and 3.5 gigs depending on your system.

Is there really any reason to add another 2 gigs (especially dual ch.) if Windows can't use most of it? I think not but I still see a lot of people with 4 gigs in their systems. Maybe they are running 64-bit Vista.

What's the skinny. Thanks

 

[Harvey]

Yes, it's true that 32 bit Windows versions can't use more than around 3 GB of RAM. If you're running onboard video, you may be able to use the rest, but I'm not sure about that.

You can always run 3 GB. If have four RAM slots, and you're running dual channel mode, you can use 2 x 1 GB and 2 x 512 KB sticks.

 

[xColdSteelx]

I was wondering if I could run 3 gigs with Dual Ch. ram, and how exactly to do it, so that is good to know. Thanks, Harvey.

 

[nccr]

I'm running winxp 32 with 4x1gb ram, and it reports 3.4gb in task manager. If you want to dual channel 3gb, get 2 1gb sticks and 2 512 sticks.

 

[Nothinman]

a friend told me that 32-bit OS's like my Vista 32-bit reserve part of memory for system hardware like the BIOS. He says Windows will only report between 2.75 and 3.5 gigs depending on your system.

The firmware is what does the reservation not the OS, the OS just uses the memory map that the firmware provides and 32-bit Windows clients are artificially limited to 4G so you end up with 4G minus what the hardware requires. Other 32-bit OSes that fully implement PAE (i.e. Linux, FreeBSD, etc) can use all 4G just fine.

Is there really any reason to add another 2 gigs (especially dual ch.) if Windows can't use most of it? I think not but I still see a lot of people with 4 gigs in their systems. Maybe they are running 64-bit Vista.

Because memory's cheap and it makes sense to be proactive since you'll likely be running Vista64 in the future anyway since you're already running Windows.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: xColdSteelx
I was wondering if I could run 3 gigs with Dual Ch. ram, and how exactly to do it, so that is good to know. Thanks, Harvey.

You can. You will need 1GB x 2, and 512 x 2.

Why not just go 2 x 2? Or 1 x 4? Matched modules are always better. Oh, and you will need to make sure ALL your sticks are IDENTICAL CAS latencies. Hard to match 512 sticks with 1GB sticks which is why I recommend 2 x 2 or 1 x 4.

 

[JustaGeek]

I am one of the lucky ones, since G.Skill HZ series modules come in both 2x1GB and 2x512MB.

 

[acebake]

I used to be an advanced computer user, but I've fallen back and am interested in upgrading. I just bought one of the Dell Vostro's; Dell's website says the computer can support a maximum of 2 GB.

You're effectively saying that the system would support up to 3 GB of RAM (since it's a 32 bit OS)?

 

[Nothinman]

You're effectively saying that the system would support up to 3 GB of RAM (since it's a 32 bit OS)?

It depends on the hardware, if the chipset or the firmware is limited to 2G then software support is irrelevant.