4GB RAM

[Yan]

Dear all,

We bought a new Dell PC recently. The memory is 4.0GB DDR
SDRAM. We can see '4GB memory' shown in BIOS. But from
Windows XP, it shows 3.6GB Memory. Does anybody know why
we loose about a half GB memory? What can we do to make
good use of the maximum memory?

Thank you.

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

Its the way that Windows counts your RAM. The memory manufacturer and Dell
list a Megabyte of Ram as 1,000 bytes. Windows calculates it correctly as
1,024 MB. When you factor this conversion for 4GB, then you get the figure
that you see in Windows. The windows is the true figure. The other figure
is inflated for marketing purposes.

Bobby

 

[Robert Smith]

7/29/2004 6:29:34 AM


<[email protected]>

Dear all,

We bought a new Dell PC recently. The memory is 4.0GB DDR

SDRAM. We can see '4GB memory' shown in BIOS. But from

Windows XP, it shows 3.6GB Memory. Does anybody know why

we loose about a half GB memory? What can we do to make

good use of the maximum memory?

Thank you.

What kind of video card is the system using? Is it on the
motherboard? If so, the video may be using the memory.

 

[Al]

LMAO!

Is that why Windows XP reports my 2048 megs of RAM? You also need to learn math bigtime! IF windows reports "it" correctly @ 1024megs (as to represent a gig), then 4Gs would be 4096megs of RAM, not 3.6 as the OP states show!

Using WINVER, Windows reprts 2,096,124 KBs of RAM. DXDIAG reports the correct amount, 2048 MEGS.

 

[Wislu Plethora]

-----Original Message-----
Its the way that Windows counts your RAM. The memory manufacturer and Dell
list a Megabyte of Ram as 1,000 bytes. Windows calculates it correctly as
1,024 MB. When you factor this conversion for 4GB, then you get the figure
that you see in Windows. The windows is the true figure. The other figure
is inflated for marketing purposes.

Bobby

Once again you prove that you won't let a little thing
like knowledge get in the way of responding to a post.

 

[Bob I]

It is normal for some hardware/motherboards. Dell should provide you
with the answer/reason. It also happens on some Compaqs as I recall.

 

[Joshua Smith [MSFT]]

There seems to be some confusion here so I'll try to show how the math work
on this

The maker defines GB as 1000000000, but we will look at why this is never
right and why the OS gives us something else.

1KB = 1024 Bytes
1MB = 1024 KB or 1048576 Bytes
1GB = 1024 MB or 1024x1024x1024 = 1073741824 Bytes

400000000 Bytes reported by the manufacturer / 1073741824 Bytes/GB = ~3.725
GB

2096124 KB / 1024 KB/MB = ~2048MB so both Winver and DXDiag are reporting
the correct value.

Remember, due to the 1024 for everything there is rounding that takes place
that makes the numbers usually not work out exactly all the time, but you
get the idea The same thing happens in harddrives.

Joshua Smith
DirectInput and OpenGL Test Labs
Microsoft
-----

Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights




LMAO!

Is that why Windows XP reports my 2048 megs of RAM? You also need to learn
math bigtime! IF windows reports "it" correctly @ 1024megs (as to represent
a gig), then 4Gs would be 4096megs of RAM, not 3.6 as the OP states show!

Using WINVER, Windows reprts 2,096,124 KBs of RAM. DXDIAG reports the
correct amount, 2048 MEGS.

 

[Joshua Smith [MSFT]]

Have you looked at the physical sticks of memory? Oddly enough the 2.09GB
works out to be about 2,250,000,000 as a manufacturer would usually report
it. Is there perhaps more RAM in there than you thought, like 2x 1GB and 1x
256MB (or if there is enough slots 4x 512MB and 1x 256MB)?
As far as the BIOS is concerned, without knowing what BIOS ect I would
venture the guess that they used the same 1,000,000,000/GB conversion
instead of 1,073,741,824/GB to better match what the RAM makers were
reporting.

Joshua Smith
DirectInput and OpenGL Test Labs
Microsoft
-----

Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

 

[Glen]

If you have an ICH5R Intel hub it will be using the missing memory. This is
due to the way ICH5R allocates 4GB RAM. Read the manual for the actual
details. This is written from memory. Basically the missing memory is
because of the way ICH5R allocates memory when all 4 slots are filled. I'm
not sure about other makers chips.

Glen

 

[Ron Martell]

Its the way that Windows counts your RAM. The memory manufacturer and Dell
list a Megabyte of Ram as 1,000 bytes. Windows calculates it correctly as
1,024 MB. When you factor this conversion for 4GB, then you get the figure
that you see in Windows. The windows is the true figure. The other figure
is inflated for marketing purposes.

That is true for drive capacity but not for RAM. RAM is always
reported in binary (Kilo = 1024 etc) measures.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Ron Martell]

Dear all,

We bought a new Dell PC recently. The memory is 4.0GB DDR
SDRAM. We can see '4GB memory' shown in BIOS. But from
Windows XP, it shows 3.6GB Memory. Does anybody know why
we loose about a half GB memory? What can we do to make
good use of the maximum memory?

Thank you.

4gb of RAM with Windows XP can be a bit problematic, and is also
somewhat in the nature of "uncharted waters" because of the limited
amount of practical experience with this much RAM in a PC.

In order to fully utilize this for Windows I believe you need to add a
special switch value (/3gb) to the boot.ini file, but I am not certain
as to the exact location for this parameter.

This is the best article that I could find on this subject:

http://www.hp.com/workstations/segments/mcad/dassault/windows/memory_xp.html

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Robert Smith]

7/29/2004 11:18:01 AM


<[email protected]>

The video card utilizes up to 64MB of system memory. It is just a

very little portion of the amount I lose.



Sorry, some allow you to customize the amount and with that much
overhead I thought Dell might have maxed it out...

 

[Al]

Umm, I understand the difference between binary and decimal, I was just pointing out Bobby's incongruous statement, by giving a comparison from my PC (regardless to binary and decimal). Hopefully after you have read this,' you'll have maybe expanded your thought processes beyond the one dimensional.

 

[Tom]

It should look like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /3GB

 

[choro-nik]

You couldn't have understood the difference. You can maybe at some future
date understand the difference between binary and base 10 which is not
quite the same as decimal even though the two are interlinked !!!

--
choro-nik
***********

Umm, I understand the difference between binary and decimal, I was just
pointing out Bobby's incongruous statement, by giving a comparison from my
PC (regardless to binary and decimal). Hopefully after you have read this,'
you'll have maybe expanded your thought processes beyond the one
dimensional.

 

[Al]

You dumb ¢ünt! RAM is ALWAYS Binary, dick! Mr. MSFT threw some analogy out there, that doesn't apply to RAM.. I understand fully base 10, decimal, denary, binary, or WTFever number base you want to use. He mentioned RAM as if it is a hard drive that has those considerations. He is gormless, your worthless!

 

[Star Fleet Admiral Q]

HP has taken this out of context, as the /3GB switch has nothing to do
with "physical" memory, only "Virtual" memory, and then only when
dealing with how much is given to an application and how much is given
to the OS - the /3GB switch gives an addition GB to an application,
and short changes the OS a GB, resulting in a 3-1 ratio of Virtual
Memory instead of a 1-1 ratio (2GB/2GB) of Virtual Memory - see
explanation below - also note, I've not seen one PC/Workstation
application (except CAD for workstations and server applications are
another subject) that was written to use 3GB of Virtual Memory (as the
programmer has to specifically code the program to use an additional
1GB of Addressable Memory) - so if you use it, you are basically
wasting 1GB of Virtual Memory that OS could put to use.
/3GB
This switch made its debut in NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 and is
supported on all later releases of NT. It will cause the split between
the user and system portions of NT's virtual address map to move from
2GB user, 2GB system to 3GB user, 1GB system. Giving virtual memory
intensive applications like database servers a larger address space
can improve their performance. Note, however that for an application
to take advantage of this feature two additional conditions must hold:
The system must be part of the NT Enterprise suite (SP3 is not) and
the application must be flagged as a 3GB-aware application. See
Microsoft KB Article Q171793 for additional information.



--

Star Fleet Admiral Q @ your service
--------------------------------------------------------

4gb of RAM with Windows XP can be a bit problematic, and is also
somewhat in the nature of "uncharted waters" because of the limited
amount of practical experience with this much RAM in a PC.

In order to fully utilize this for Windows I believe you need to add a
special switch value (/3gb) to the boot.ini file, but I am not certain
as to the exact location for this parameter.

This is the best article that I could find on this subject:

http://www.hp.com/workstations/segments/mcad/dassault/windows/memory_xp.html

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat

much."

 

[Star Fleet Admiral Q]

Don't know the specs of your PC, but I have a Precision 450, 4GB or
RAM with an nVidia Quadro 1000 (256MB Video Memory, dual head dvi) and
in the BIOS I can reserve and shadow up to 512MB of RAM for use of
video shadowing to increase the performance of video rendering. This
in turn causes windows to only see 3.5GB of RAM instead of the full
4GB - now this is my workstation - I can't say for all Dells, but my
older 420 with 2GB or ram and 64MB Quadro Pro has the same option to
reserve 128MB via the BIOS for video shadowing. Your mileage may
vary.
Also, 2k/XP handles 4GB of memory just fine, contrary to other
poster's opinions - it is not like the Win9x OS's where memory above
512MB needed an added entry to limit VCACHE in the [enhanced] section
of the win386.ini file.

 

[Charles Best]

i am having the same problem on several machines. i put 4GB physical memory
in which the bios detects correctly, but in the task manager, i only have
about 31/4GB total memory. This definately has something to do with
hardware configuration. for instance, changing the AGP aperature setting in
the bios directly effects the amount of memory listed by windows.

my question is this: why does this happen with 4GB physical memory, but not
with less physical memory eg 2GB, 1GB, etc???

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem. I am just beginning to read KB291988. I saw it in
the "4GB ram" (literal) (All threads....). I am exploring possibilities....

BR