2 GB Windows barrier

[buleyb]

Not really, though, and for the sake of argument....

Task Manager will only report that, but any windows application can see all the physical memory. CPU-Z will report hard figures regardless of system/BIOS/application usage.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: sm8000
A 32-bit system gives you 2^32 (4GB) of total address space. If you put in 4GB of RAM, some of it will be reserved for hardware address space, such as PC & PCI-E subsystems, AGP aperture, and a shadow copy of video RAM.

This is why you need 64-bit hardware and a 64 bit OS, such as "win xp 64 bit."

fzkl, what are your system's hardware specs? You might be able to regain some of that lost RAM by lowering your AGP aperture. If you have SLI video cards, take one out.

fyi, your aperture has nothing to do with how much ram is displayed anywhere.

 

[imported_Crusader]

Running 4GB of mem will slow down a computer, not speed it up.
Its too many addresses for the CPU to manage.
Link
Thats just 1GB vs 512MB vs 2GB.. 3-4GB is ridiculous and going to dog behind probably even 512MB.

I'd top out a PC at max 2GB as I think in at least one game (BF2) its kind of useful. We're approaching a programming crisis if games cant keep it under 1GB or 2GB.

If you dont game, and need 4GB for other tasks.. I would assume you'd have a much more powerful PC than you do and are a true professional (work at Oracle/IBM/MS/SAP/places like that).

 

[buleyb]

Originally posted by: Crusader
If you dont game, and need 4GB for other tasks.. I would assume you'd have a much more powerful PC than you do and are a true professional (work at Oracle/IBM/MS/SAP/places like that).

This is the reasoning for the machine I've been working on, Matlab is a horrible memory manager

 

[imported_Crusader]

ya and i guess i didnt notice you are running xp64.. thats not going to be the gamers choice either.

edit-oops nm.. i somehow got the impression from all the xp64 talk that you were on that..

 

[willr666]

My problem is that I am running XP64 on an Operon 170 and I added two sticks of
totalling 4G in the system.

The BIOS states that there is 4G physical but 'usable' is only 3G. I thought this problem
only applied to win32.

Furthermore, windows states that there are only 3G of memory in the system.

I think that somewhere it was stated that this can happen if the motherboard uses 32 bit
components, but this shouldn't be the case...

Someone else (on the ASUS board) said that because I was running PC3200 RAM,
I couldn't address the 4G, so I would have to run DDR4 memory.......um?

Anyone have any reccos? I'll be nice :^)
Will

 

[buleyb]

What motherboard model, memory models...

 

[fire400]

you need to manually patch the 32-bit OS to support a full 4 gigs.

you can find it in the microsoft.com official corporate website in its search engine.

 

[willr666]

Sorry -

here are the system specs
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe
Memory is OCZ Platinum PC3200DDR (2-3-2-5)

The tech at Asus support suggested changing the 'memory hole' setting in the BIOS
so now Windows sees 4G. He said it is a problem with the design of the Nforce chips (he said there is the same problem with the Intel chips).

I am hoping for a better answer....

Also, I am now running Memtest86 and with the 3 gigs, it runs ok but the with the fourth
stick I get errors (not sure if this is related or not).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Will

 

[willr666]

Anyone??? This memory hole solution bothers me, and memtest is acting funky when I have the fourth stick in....

Thanks
Will

 

[TonyB]

when it comes to hardware talks amung enthusiasts, more memory means a bigger e-peen. so yes. get as much ram as you can. 4GB is small now, 32GB is where its at. 16 x 2GB sticks woot!

 

[StrangerGuy]

Originally posted by: TonyB
when it comes to hardware talks amung enthusiasts, more memory means a bigger e-peen. so yes. get as much ram as you can. 4GB is small now, 32GB is where its at. 16 x 2GB sticks woot!

Your post is very relevant to this thread...Thank you!

 

[buleyb]

Will,

Nothing to provide off hand, but you should ask over here, the office forum thread for your motherboard
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1702761&enterthread=y

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: sm8000

fzkl, what are your system's hardware specs? You might be able to regain some of that lost RAM by lowering your AGP aperture. If you have SLI video cards, take one out.

How would either of those affect memory?

Anyways, go to ubuntu and download their live CD. Put it and boot up, you do'nt need to install anything. And see what reads teh memory as. You could just have some sort of Windows issue.

 

[Steve]

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: sm8000

fzkl, what are your system's hardware specs? You might be able to regain some of that lost RAM by lowering your AGP aperture. If you have SLI video cards, take one out.

How would either of those affect memory?

I hate having to repeat myself...

When 4GB of RAM is installed in a 32-bit (2^32=4GB) system, some of the RAM will be eaten up by hardware address space. All the video card RAM is part of this. So is AGP Aperture. Seriously, try lowering it in a 4GB system with Win32 and see for yourself. And in the case of PCI-E cards, there was a thread here recently with somebody using dual 7800 cards with 512MB of video RAM each. And he wondered why his 4GB was showing up as 2.3GB...

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: sm8000
I hate having to repeat myself...

When 4GB of RAM is installed in a 32-bit (2^32=4GB) system, some of the RAM will be eaten up by hardware address space. All the video card RAM is part of this. So is AGP Aperture. Seriously, try lowering it in a 4GB system with Win32 and see for yourself. And in the case of PCI-E cards, there was a thread here recently with somebody using dual 7800 cards with 512MB of video RAM each. And he wondered why his 4GB was showing up as 2.3GB...

That's correct. There was an article in Maximum PC about it and that was the ASUS engineer's response. He said the OS would have to be recoded to support that because drivers would likely fail.

 

[willr666]

Ugh -

Well it the recent replys were to my post.....

64 BIT!!!! OS, CPU - that's what I have, and (I believe) that it should support
the 4G of ram (without the 32bit limitations). So I don't know why changing the
memory hole setting would allow the OS to 'see' the whole 4G, I am guessing
it is a BIOS issue though. That's why I was hoping that the experts would verify
1) that with a 64 bit OS and CPU, I _should_ be able to both see and use the entire
4 Gigi of RAM
2) If the above its true, then it is likely a BIOS issue
and
3) The memory has nothing to do with this (I am having a rather unproductive 'discussion' with someone on the ASUS board, who claims that
I need 'DDR4' memory to use the 4G of RAM....

So experts, please weigh-in,

Thanks
Will

 

[Steve]

DDR4 isn't even a standard yet. With everything you've got, you should be able to address four complete GB of RAM. It boils down to a BIOS issue, or maybe some esoteric chipset issue - though I can't imagine that would be the problem, as the memory controller is in the CPU. Perhaps a newer CPU with a more tweaked RAM controller would be okay, though that still leads me to think it's a BIOS problem.