Greetings All,
Here is my setup:
Windows XP Pro SP/2 with ALL updates (critical and otherwise). Product
is activated with MS.
Motherboard: ASUS P5NSLI with latest BIOS from ASUS
Pentium D 830 3.0GHz 2MB Cache 800 FSB Socket 775 Dual Core
Hiper 580W Modular Blue LED Power Supply
SeaGate 320GB SATA HD (97% Empty)
WesternDigital 80 GB IDE HD (99% Empty)
AOPEN DUW1616/ARR DVD-RW & JLMS DVD-ROM LTD-166S
Zalman CNPS9500 Blue LED Copper Heatsink/Fan
Cooler Master Mystique 632 Black Alumium w/Side Acrylic Panel
Virtual Memory handled by Windows
4 GB PC2 4200 CL4 240 PIN DIMM Kingston DDR2 RAM

Upon boot-up, POST shows me the full 4GBs of RAM.
Going into the BIOS also shows me the full 4GBs of RAM.
However, Windows Task Manager, as well as Sandra Professional Business
XI only shows that 2.75GBs of RAM are in the machine (2,882,028
bytes).
I've read about the "4GB limitation" of Windows XP 32-bit. However,
I've also read that other folks using Windows XP Pro get different
values of RAM when then have 4GBs in their box. I've seen numbers like
3.25GB and other values as well.
Editing the boot.ini file with such variations like the /3GB switch
and the /PAE switch do nothing to resolve my issues.
My question is:
Is there anything I can do, short of switching to a 64-bit OS, to
allow the use of the full 4GBs of RAM I now have or, at the very
least, anything that will let me use more then the 2.75GBs that
Windows is currently seeing?
Or am I just stuck with a gig that is doing nothing??
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards.

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
Omicron says...

> I've read about the "4GB limitation" of Windows XP 32-bit. However,
> I've also read that other folks using Windows XP Pro get different
> values of RAM when then have 4GBs in their box. I've seen numbers like
> 3.25GB and other values as well.
> Editing the boot.ini file with such variations like the /3GB switch
> and the /PAE switch do nothing to resolve my issues.
> My question is:
> Is there anything I can do, short of switching to a 64-bit OS, to
> allow the use of the full 4GBs of RAM I now have or, at the very
> least, anything that will let me use more then the 2.75GBs that
> Windows is currently seeing?
> Or am I just stuck with a gig that is doing nothing??
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> Regards.
>
You're stuck. The reason people get varying amounts with 4GB in a 32
bit Windows OS is because of the different hardware. The more you've
got in, the more memory the hardware has reserved and the less you see.
For example, take out one of your PCI cards and you'll see it go up.
Add one and it'll drop.



--
Conor

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
until you hear them speak.........

Conor wrote:
> You're stuck. The reason people get varying amounts with 4GB in a 32
> bit Windows OS is because of the different hardware. The more you've
> got in, the more memory the hardware has reserved and the less you see.
> For example, take out one of your PCI cards and you'll see it go up.
> Add one and it'll drop.

Is it that the hardware uses the memory for something (in which case 64 bits
wouldn't help), or that a portion of the address space is occupied by the
hardware (in which case the OS's virtual memory mapping ought to take care of
it, if done right, so long as no process wants all 4gb to itself, but perhaps
it is not done right).
--
Ron Hardin
(E-Mail Removed)

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

"Conor" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
> Omicron says...
>
>> I've read about the "4GB limitation" of Windows XP 32-bit. However,
>> I've also read that other folks using Windows XP Pro get different
>> values of RAM when then have 4GBs in their box. I've seen numbers like
>> 3.25GB and other values as well.
>> Editing the boot.ini file with such variations like the /3GB switch
>> and the /PAE switch do nothing to resolve my issues.
>> My question is:
>> Is there anything I can do, short of switching to a 64-bit OS, to
>> allow the use of the full 4GBs of RAM I now have or, at the very
>> least, anything that will let me use more then the 2.75GBs that
>> Windows is currently seeing?
>> Or am I just stuck with a gig that is doing nothing??
>> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>> Regards.
>>
> You're stuck. The reason people get varying amounts with 4GB in a 32
> bit Windows OS is because of the different hardware. The more you've
> got in, the more memory the hardware has reserved and the less you see.
> For example, take out one of your PCI cards and you'll see it go up.
> Add one and it'll drop.
>
>
>
> --
> Conor
>
> Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
> until you hear them speak.........

l have just constructed a new super system with 4GB ram (2 x 2 matched
pairs) and windows system shows it as 3.25GB. Belarc and the BIOS show the
full 4GB. But hey its cheap these days so I aint bovered.

dj
Intel D975XBX2
Intel Quad Core Q6600
Corsair Ram 2 x (2 x1GB) matched
XFX 7600GT DDR3 Graphics
WD Caviar HDD 250GB x 2
Thermaltake Toughpower 700W
NEC AD7170 DVD/RAM
DLink DWL-G510 WLan
XP Pro SP2

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Ron Hardin says...

> Is it that the hardware uses the memory for something (in which case 64 bits
> wouldn't help), or that a portion of the address space is occupied by the
> hardware (in which case the OS's virtual memory mapping ought to take care of
> it, if done right, so long as no process wants all 4gb to itself, but perhaps
> it is not done right).
>
The hardware has it's own memory or range of addresses it needs to
reserve to access it. As XP 32 bit can only address 4GB and nothing
above this, the mapping is done so the hardware requirements are kept
within this 4GB address range.


--
Conor

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
until you hear them speak.........

In article <c8WdnWy-(E-Mail Removed)>, Yes Baby says...
>
> "Conor" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
> > Omicron says...
> >
> >> I've read about the "4GB limitation" of Windows XP 32-bit. However,
> >> I've also read that other folks using Windows XP Pro get different
> >> values of RAM when then have 4GBs in their box. I've seen numbers like
> >> 3.25GB and other values as well.
> >> Editing the boot.ini file with such variations like the /3GB switch
> >> and the /PAE switch do nothing to resolve my issues.
> >> My question is:
> >> Is there anything I can do, short of switching to a 64-bit OS, to
> >> allow the use of the full 4GBs of RAM I now have or, at the very
> >> least, anything that will let me use more then the 2.75GBs that
> >> Windows is currently seeing?
> >> Or am I just stuck with a gig that is doing nothing??
> >> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> >> Regards.
> >>
> > You're stuck. The reason people get varying amounts with 4GB in a 32
> > bit Windows OS is because of the different hardware. The more you've
> > got in, the more memory the hardware has reserved and the less you see.
> > For example, take out one of your PCI cards and you'll see it go up.
> > Add one and it'll drop.
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Conor
> >
> > Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
> > until you hear them speak.........
>
> l have just constructed a new super system with 4GB ram (2 x 2 matched
> pairs) and windows system shows it as 3.25GB. Belarc and the BIOS show the
> full 4GB. But hey its cheap these days so I aint bovered.
>
Belarc etc will be polling the SPD chip of each DIMM.

--
Conor

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
until you hear them speak.........

> "is there anything i can do to get more of my 4 gig "usable"...

Short answer: probably not.

background: the 32-bit PC can address a total of 4 Gig of ADDRESS SPACE.
Various things map into that space: RAM, ROM, certain I/O Devices, etc.
So, all of it is not available for your RAM. It is the BIOS (for the most
part) that makes this initial allocation, and XP simply follows suite.
This is why different motherboards have different amounts. Having about
3.25G of RAM available is pretty typical; some MoBo just cut it off at
3Gig, period. Better BIOS "reclaim" as much as they can.

You can check a few bios settings to make sure you're getting the most:

TURN OFF anything about "ROM Shadowing/Caching"; it is unnecessary under
XP. Also, turn off any motherboard resources that you do not use, like
older legacy ports, infared ports, firewire ports, even the wired lan port
if you only use wireless.

this topic is often-discussed, google around for more/deeper insight.

also, your MoBo maker's site might have something (a FAQ?) for your
specific model, or perhaps a forum where you can ask other users who've
already dealt with this issue.

Conor wrote:
>
> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Ron Hardin says...
>
> > Is it that the hardware uses the memory for something (in which case 64 bits
> > wouldn't help), or that a portion of the address space is occupied by the
> > hardware (in which case the OS's virtual memory mapping ought to take care of
> > it, if done right, so long as no process wants all 4gb to itself, but perhaps
> > it is not done right).
> >
> The hardware has it's own memory or range of addresses it needs to
> reserve to access it. As XP 32 bit can only address 4GB and nothing
> above this, the mapping is done so the hardware requirements are kept
> within this 4GB address range.

Don't they have memory management? The user could have the full 4GB address space
with only the OS addressing the hardware devices themselves (the user accesses
falling into actual RAM). That's what I meant by doing it right.

--
Ron Hardin
(E-Mail Removed)

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

"Ron Hardin" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Conor wrote:
>>
>> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Ron Hardin says...
>>
>> > Is it that the hardware uses the memory for something (in which case 64
>> > bits
>> > wouldn't help), or that a portion of the address space is occupied by
>> > the
>> > hardware (in which case the OS's virtual memory mapping ought to take
>> > care of
>> > it, if done right, so long as no process wants all 4gb to itself, but
>> > perhaps
>> > it is not done right).
>> >
>> The hardware has it's own memory or range of addresses it needs to
>> reserve to access it. As XP 32 bit can only address 4GB and nothing
>> above this, the mapping is done so the hardware requirements are kept
>> within this 4GB address range.
>
> Don't they have memory management? The user could have the full 4GB
> address space
> with only the OS addressing the hardware devices themselves (the user
> accesses
> falling into actual RAM). That's what I meant by doing it right.
>
> --
> Ron Hardin
> (E-Mail Removed)
>
> On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.
Of course, they have memory management. What the OP wants to know is why XP
tells him that there is far less RAM on his system than the 4 GB that he has
installed.

The answer is that RAM gets diverted to such things as shared memory
graphics cards, etc., before XP starts. Exactly how much gets diverted
depends on the system.

This RAM is the pure untouched physical quantity.

Your belief that somewhow there is a way to let the user have full access to
all, or nearly all, of the RAM is false.
The operating system requires quite a bit of memory in addition to the
amount needed for the physical devices for such tasks as memory management.

In fact, the entire operating system is mapped into the virtual address
space that each process owns.
Jim

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Ron Hardin says...

>
> Don't they have memory management? The user could have the full 4GB address space
> with only the OS addressing the hardware devices themselves (the user accesses
> falling into actual RAM). That's what I meant by doing it right.
>
Irrelevent. It's down to binary maths. 32bits = 4GB because the binary
address you use to access a memory location can only be 32 bits long,
i.e

11111111111111111111111111111111

= 4294967295

which is approx 4GB.

So you can't physically address anything above that because there are
only 32 bits you can use in the address.


--
Conor

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
until you hear them speak.........