Dumb Windows XP and 4 gigs of memory question..

[jr77ok]

Will Windows XP actually "show" 4 gigs of memory? I have 2 x 1 gig sticks and 4 x 512 sticks all ECC and XP shows 3.25GIG and Physical address extension. Bios does see the full 4 gigs..

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: jr77ok
Will Windows XP actually "show" 4 gigs of memory? I have 2 x 1 gig sticks and 4 x 512 sticks and XP shows 3.25GIG and Physical address extension. Bios does see the full 4 gigs..

My 2003 server with 4 gigs shows about 3.6, the descepency was due to the agp window size and a few other areas which windows couldn't directly use. Not sure what would account for the other 1/2 a gig in your case (presuming your agp window is 26k)

Bill

 

[MarioBros]

What mobo are you using?

 

[Steve]

In a 32-bit system (non-AMD64/EM64T) you have 4GB of address space available (2^32 = 4GB). This includes RAM, however if you put in 4GB of RAM you're going to lose some because a)Windows needs to put address space somewhere, and b)your hardware needs address space. This will include things like your BIOS, VGA memory (sometimes multiple copies), AGP aperture, PCI and other subsystems. Systems with less than 4GB of RAM won't be affected as Windows will address the hardware in virtual memory.


Somebody please tell me if I got that right.

 

[Nothinman]

a)Windows needs to put address space somewhere,

If that were the case Windows would always show a number smaller than what you have installed and that isn't the case.

 

[Steve]

Did you miss my last part about having less than 4GB of RAM?

 

[pavane]

Windoze memory management is a total lottery anyway, so I would never expect Windoze to be accurate about the amount of memory it sees in any system

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: pavane
blah blah WinDoze blah blah M$ blah blah

Aw, how cute. It's a rabid anti-Microsoft fanboy. Too bad that PAE (Physical Address Extension) isn't an "M$" related issue. :roll:

OP - add the /PAE switch to your boot.ini file and you should be able to recover the "lost memory" - remove it if you start to suffer instability.

- M4H

 

[Nothinman]

Did you miss my last part about having less than 4GB of RAM?

No, but I read it wrong the first time.

Windoze memory management is a total lottery anyway, so I would never expect Windoze to be accurate about the amount of memory it sees in any system

Then why are you still using it?

 

[Steve]

I think he's stuck on Windows 98FE Memory management from NT 5.0 and up has been great, in my experience.