I have a friend who's system won't see past 2.75 GB of Ram. He claims that a
white-paper told him that although MS says it supports 4GB, it really will
not unless it's 64-bit. I told him I thought this was firmware issue.

Thoughts?

With 32 bit Windows it depends on the motherboard. 2.75 GB seems a little
low. Usually with 4 GB you can see around 3.25 GB. Does he have the /PAE
switch in his boot.ini?

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
www.vistahelp.ca/phpBB2

"Jason" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:EAE79D77-2A2E-42BE-81E4-(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have a friend who's system won't see past 2.75 GB of Ram. He claims that
>a
> white-paper told him that although MS says it supports 4GB, it really will
> not unless it's 64-bit. I told him I thought this was firmware issue.
>
> Thoughts?

The /3GB switch may make it look like XP sees more ram but it can actually
slow down your system. Normally the kernel gets 2 GB of address space and
processes get another 2 GB regardless of how much actual ram is installed.
The /3GB switch changes this to 1 GB for the kernel and 3 GB for processes.
Some graphics programs and database programs may run a bit faster with this
switch as they manipulate large amounts of data in ram. For normal use
squeezing the kernel into 1 GB may actually slow things down by causing more
paging to disk. Try the /PAE switch.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
www.vistahelp.ca/phpBB2

"Jason" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:6784621B-A2CE-4A7C-8530-(E-Mail Removed)...
> No.
>
> I thought /PAE was for more than 4 GB-? what about the /3gb switch?
>
>
> "Kerry Brown" wrote:
>
>> With 32 bit Windows it depends on the motherboard. 2.75 GB seems a little
>> low. Usually with 4 GB you can see around 3.25 GB. Does he have the /PAE
>> switch in his boot.ini?
>>
>> --
>> Kerry Brown
>> Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
>> www.vistahelp.ca/phpBB2
>>
>> "Jason" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:EAE79D77-2A2E-42BE-81E4-(E-Mail Removed)...
>> >I have a friend who's system won't see past 2.75 GB of Ram. He claims
>> >that
>> >a
>> > white-paper told him that although MS says it supports 4GB, it really
>> > will
>> > not unless it's 64-bit. I told him I thought this was firmware issue.
>> >
>> > Thoughts?
>>
>>

On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:30:00 -0800, Jason
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I have a friend who's system won't see past 2.75 GB of Ram. He claims that a
>white-paper told him that although MS says it supports 4GB, it really will
>not unless it's 64-bit. I told him I thought this was firmware issue.

It certainly could be, I've got a box that won't see more than 2.8. A
64-bit chip isn't enough, you need a 64-bit OS to get past the limit.
The problem is that you get 4gb of *TOTAL* address space. Things
other than memory take priority, though--things like your video cards
etc.

I have 3.0Gb of RAM in my system and XP sees and uses it just fine.
No problems. No issues.

"Loren Pechtel" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:30:00 -0800, Jason
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>I have a friend who's system won't see past 2.75 GB of Ram. He claims
>>that a
>>white-paper told him that although MS says it supports 4GB, it really will
>>not unless it's 64-bit. I told him I thought this was firmware issue.
>
> It certainly could be, I've got a box that won't see more than 2.8. A
> 64-bit chip isn't enough, you need a 64-bit OS to get past the limit.
> The problem is that you get 4gb of *TOTAL* address space. Things
> other than memory take priority, though--things like your video cards
> etc.

Here's your answer:
http://www.microsoft.com:80/whdc/sys...AE/PAEmem.mspx

> "Loren Pechtel" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:30:00 -0800, Jason
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>>I have a friend who's system won't see past 2.75 GB of Ram. He claims
>>>that a
>>>white-paper told him that although MS says it supports 4GB, it really
>>>will
>>>not unless it's 64-bit. I told him I thought this was firmware issue.
>>
>> It certainly could be, I've got a box that won't see more than 2.8. A
>> 64-bit chip isn't enough, you need a 64-bit OS to get past the limit.
>> The problem is that you get 4gb of *TOTAL* address space. Things
>> other than memory take priority, though--things like your video cards
>> etc.
>
>

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:49:49 -0800, "Jerry" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>I have 3.0Gb of RAM in my system and XP sees and uses it just fine.
>No problems. No issues.

Different boxes are different. This one will see about 3.5.

>
>"Loren Pechtel" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:30:00 -0800, Jason
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>>I have a friend who's system won't see past 2.75 GB of Ram. He claims
>>>that a
>>>white-paper told him that although MS says it supports 4GB, it really will
>>>not unless it's 64-bit. I told him I thought this was firmware issue.
>>
>> It certainly could be, I've got a box that won't see more than 2.8. A
>> 64-bit chip isn't enough, you need a 64-bit OS to get past the limit.
>> The problem is that you get 4gb of *TOTAL* address space. Things
>> other than memory take priority, though--things like your video cards
>> etc.
>