Memory ?

[titus12]

I have 3.5GB of memory in my computer. Only 3328MB is showing. Is this
correct? I have WinXP Home. I first had 4GB installed and it said the
same. So I took a 512MB stick out to see if 3.5GB would show up. Now I
have a; 1GB, 2GB and 512MB stick in my computer. The 1GB is PC2-4300, the
2GB is PC2-6400 and the 512MB is PC2-5300. My motherboard is an Asus
P5GD2-X and I have a P4-430 3.0 processer.

Thank you;
David

 

[Jim]

I have 3.5GB of memory in my computer. Only 3328MB is showing. Is this
correct? I have WinXP Home. I first had 4GB installed and it said the
same. So I took a 512MB stick out to see if 3.5GB would show up. Now I
have a; 1GB, 2GB and 512MB stick in my computer. The 1GB is PC2-4300, the
2GB is PC2-6400 and the 512MB is PC2-5300. My motherboard is an Asus
P5GD2-X and I have a P4-430 3.0 processer.

Thank you;
David

Yes 3328 would be in the expected range. This subject has been beaten to
death
in recent weeks. It certainly would have been nice of MS to explain the
reason that
you can never see all of 3.5 GB or more. This won't happen for XP.

Jim

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have 3.5GB of memory in my computer. Only 3328MB is showing. Is this
correct? I have WinXP Home. I first had 4GB installed and it said the
same. So I took a 512MB stick out to see if 3.5GB would show up. Now I
have a; 1GB, 2GB and 512MB stick in my computer. The 1GB is PC2-4300, the
2GB is PC2-6400 and the 512MB is PC2-5300. My motherboard is an Asus
P5GD2-X and I have a P4-430 3.0 processer.

All 32-bit versions of Windows (not just XP) have a 4GB address space.
That's the theoretical upper limit beyond which you can not go.

You can't use the entire 4GB of address space. Even though you have a
4GB address space, you can only use *around* 3.1GB of RAM. That's
because some of that space is used by hardware and not available to
the operating system and applications. The amount you can use varies,
depending on what hardware you have installed, but is usually around
3.1GB.

Note that the hardware is using the address *space*, not the actual
RAM itself. The rest of the RAM goes unused because there is no
address space to map it too.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have 3.5GB of memory in my computer. Only 3328MB is showing. Is
this correct? I have WinXP Home. I first had 4GB installed and it
said the same. So I took a 512MB stick out to see if 3.5GB would
show up. Now I have a; 1GB, 2GB and 512MB stick in my computer. The 1GB
is PC2-4300, the 2GB is PC2-6400 and the 512MB is PC2-5300.
My motherboard is an Asus P5GD2-X and I have a P4-430 3.0 processer.

Yes 3328 would be in the expected range. This subject has been
beaten to death in recent weeks. It certainly would have been nice
of MS to explain the reason that you can never see all of 3.5 GB or
more. This won't happen for XP.

It has happened for Windows XP - Windows XP Professional x64 Edition:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/default.mspx?wt_svl=20395a&mg_id=20395b
Where this follow-up link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/facts/top10.mspx
Says, "Windows XP Professional x64 Edition supports up to 128 gigabytes (GB)
of RAM and 16 terabytes of virtual memory..."

MS has explained it over and over - as have many others in the last 6 years.
It has not been the 'recent weeks' in which this subject has been 'beaten to
death' - I would say it has been the last 5+ years. ;-)

Here's the explanation (from Microsoft) for Windows XP SP2 32-bit.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291988

Here's the explanation (from Microsoft) for Windows Vista 32-bit.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605

Some comparisons (from Microsoft) of 32bit and 64bit capabilities.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294418

More of the same (from Microsoft).
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888732

An article on the Internet from August of last year:
http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/08/30/32-bit-windows-and-4gb-of-ram/
.... where you get pointed to the PAE switch article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291988
(More discussion on such things:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms791558.aspx)

The many hits with 4GB in the subject line in the newsgroups archive on
Google...
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=&num=100&as_usubject=4GB
(Some may have to do with FAT32 file size limitations...)

The Google groups hits with 4GB in the subject line and 32 bit in the
body...
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=32+bit&num=100&as_usubject=4GB

 

[Gerry]

A most succinct response Shenan <G>!

--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~