4GB RAM shows up as 2GB in Win XP Pro 32 Bit

[Jerb]

Ram is so damn cheap right now I ended up with 4GB in my rig. I know that windows 32 bit can only address so much ram but it should be more than exactly 2 GB's (2048 MB)

Bios see's all the sticks, Ntune see's them too.

what are my options here?

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: Jerb
Ram is so damn cheap right now I ended up with 4GB in my rig. I know that windows 32 bit can only address so much ram but it should be more than exactly 2 GB's (2048 MB)

Bios see's all the sticks, Ntune see's them too.

what are my options here?

A 64 Bit operating system... Vista...

 

[pallejr]

disable memory remapping in bios

 

[Jerb]

I tried the PAE switch but that didnt work, I'll try the remapping thing. failing that Im loading Vista.

Are all versions of Vista 64bit?

 

[Rebel44]

Originally posted by: Jerb
I tried the PAE switch but that didnt work, I'll try the remapping thing. failing that Im loading Vista.

Are all versions of Vista 64bit?

You can buy either 32bit ot 64bit version of Vista - price is same so my reccomendation is to buy Home Premium 64bit OEM (105 USD).

 

[Nothinman]

I tried the PAE switch but that didnt work, I'll try the remapping thing. failing that Im loading Vista.

The PAE switch won't do anything except enable NX on 32-bit consumer versions of Windows, they're artificially limited to 4G and from that the hardware has to 'steal' some addressesto function. 2G is on the extreme end of how much you might lose but it's not unheard of.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

No guarantee here, but I ran across this in "XP Resource Toolkit" bible while troubleshooting or preparing for adding memory of my own.

There is a "4G tuning" option that can be added to the BOOT.INI file. You'd best go where I pointed you, and look at it more closely.

 

[Nothinman]

There is a "4G tuning" option that can be added to the BOOT.INI file. You'd best go where I pointed you, and look at it more closely.

Which has absolutely zero to do with the problem the OP is experiencing.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You could be right about that, but my reading of it suggested that it addressed a problem with XP Pro recognizing all 4GB of memory for having that much socketed.

I'm still testing my 3GB (1GB increase over initial config) -- see my thread on that. It now seems to test out fine under windows stress tests, with the same latency settings but on Command Rate "Auto" it now defaults to 2T instead of 1T. But all three GB are fully recognized by the OS.

 

[Nothinman]

The "4G tuning" option, which is the /3G boot.ini switch, only has to do with the virtual address space layout and has no affect on how much physical memory the OS will see and use. MS made the decision to artificially limit 32-bit consumer level OSes to 4G no matter what in order to protect you against poorly written drivers. The only way to work around that is to either run a 64-bit OS, Windows Server or another OS that wasn't crippled by it's developers.

 

[JustaGeek]

http://h20331.www2.hp.com/Hpsu...M_w-Windows_08Ap07.pdf

http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm