memory not show correctly

[Fritz Theiss]

hi,

a friend of me is facing the following problem: he does have a dell xps pc
with 4 x 1 gb ram. when he starts his windows xp sp3 32bit media center
edition he correctly sees 4 gb when opening msinfo32.exe. if he checks the
control panel -> system settings it is just 1.75 gb.

when he starts memory-intensive programs it does not work as expected due to
memory problems.

boot.ini is not changing anything when using the /pae-switch.

any idea what is going wrong here? btw: am i right in saying that windows xp
can use 4 gb by default with 32bit os?

 

[Gurpreet Singh]

Check http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

There are a number of KB articles that talk about this limitation and how
Windows reports RAM. KB929605, KB935268, KB946003

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

hi,

a friend of me is facing the following problem: he does have a dell xps pc
with 4 x 1 gb ram. when he starts his windows xp sp3 32bit media center
edition he correctly sees 4 gb when opening msinfo32.exe. if he checks the
control panel -> system settings it is just 1.75 gb.

when he starts memory-intensive programs it does not work as expected due
to
memory problems.

boot.ini is not changing anything when using the /pae-switch.

any idea what is going wrong here? btw: am i right in saying that windows
xp
can use 4 gb by default with 32bit os?

You should obtain your information directly from the source. Launch the Task
Manager, then check the entry under Physical Memory - Total. This is what
the processor can use.

 

[Gurpreet Singh]

Also forgot to mention that these may be vista KB articles I pointed you to
but the 32 bit architecture is pretty much the same in vista and xp.

 

[Fritz Theiss]

thanks so far.

however i do not think that this link
(http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx
) is discussing the issue of my friend. it is not how memory is divided up
between kernel and user mode, it is about not being able to use the full
memory being available in windows xp.

please note that the /3gb-switch does not work in windows xp (as mentioned
in your link); mostly it is ending with a blue screen. see also
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124810.aspx (a bunch of other
articles of microsoft are mentioning the /3gb-switch incorrectly working for
windows xp too).

 

[Fritz Theiss]

btw: all the kb-articles you mentioned are related to windows vista, not
windows xp, which is is the os of my friend...

 

[Fritz Theiss]

good point.

unfortunately if forgot to mention that both task manager and process
monitor of sysinternals are showing 1.75 gb too...

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Did he buy the PC from Dell with 4 GBytes? If so then he should ask the Dell
helpdesk for assistance. The can't sell a 4 GByte PC that uses less than 2
GBytes.

By the way - did you check what the BIOS reports?

 

[Fritz Theiss]

no, i believe he added 2 more gb on his own.

and yes: bios is also showing 4 x 1 gb.

 

[SC Tom]

My guess is he added RAM that's not compatible with the existing RAM, or
it's not seated well. Take the old one(s) out, leave the new in, boot up,
and see what it says for total memory. If it works OK, put the other RAM
back in and see what it now says for total memory.

HTH,
SC Tom

 

[John John (MVP)]

The /PAE switch does not allow Windows XP to use Physical Address
Extension to access RAM above the 4GB boundary, this feature is not
available on XP. The /PAE switch will not allow Windows XP to see all
of the 4GB of installed RAM. The /3GB switch *does* work but this
switch is of no use to your problem, it will not allow Windows XP to see
or use all of the 4GB or installed RAM, you shouldn't be using this
switch unless you have very specific needs.

I'm wondering if you are giving us the right numbers, with 4GB of RAM
installed with most computers Windows XP would usually be expected to
see something between 2.75 and 3.5GB of RAM, on some machines the
operating system may see less than 2.75GB but the 1.75GB that you report
seems low.

John

 

[Gerry]

Fritz

What Dell model?

What graphics card?

--


Hope this helps.

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

 

[Roy Smith]

hi,

a friend of me is facing the following problem: he does have a dell
xps pc
with 4 x 1 gb ram. when he starts his windows xp sp3 32bit media
center
edition he correctly sees 4 gb when opening msinfo32.exe. if he checks
the
control panel -> system settings it is just 1.75 gb.

when he starts memory-intensive programs it does not work as expected
due to
memory problems.

boot.ini is not changing anything when using the /pae-switch.

any idea what is going wrong here? btw: am i right in saying that
windows xp
can use 4 gb by default with 32bit os?

In the 32bit version of Windows XP there is a memory limit of 4GB, but
you'll never see Windows report that much memory. At best you'll see
somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5GB to 3.1GB. The reason is that
every device (video, network, modem, sound etc...) requires some ram to
operate and so it reduces the total size of the available memory for the
OS.

 

[Jim]

hi,

a friend of me is facing the following problem: he does have a dell xps pc
with 4 x 1 gb ram. when he starts his windows xp sp3 32bit media center
edition he correctly sees 4 gb when opening msinfo32.exe. if he checks the
control panel -> system settings it is just 1.75 gb.

when he starts memory-intensive programs it does not work as expected due
to
memory problems.

boot.ini is not changing anything when using the /pae-switch.

any idea what is going wrong here? btw: am i right in saying that windows
xp
can use 4 gb by default with 32bit os?

You will never get a PC to use all of the 4GB ram because Windows uses
memory mapped I/O. In addition, if his system has a graphics card which
uses shared memory (i. e. it uses a segment of system RAM for its own
purpose), the reported amount of RAM will be even further reduced. However,
1.75 GB out of 4 is much too low to be explained by these two sentences.
Hence, it would seem correct to insure that the RAM is working correctly.

The /PAE switch is not recognized by Windows XP. It is recognized by the
server systems. The /3GB switch only refers to the amount of virtual memory
(out of 4 GB) that is available to user programs.

Jim

 

[Ian D]

thanks so far.

however i do not think that this link
(http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx
) is discussing the issue of my friend. it is not how memory is divided up
between kernel and user mode, it is about not being able to use the full
memory being available in windows xp.

please note that the /3gb-switch does not work in windows xp (as mentioned
in your link); mostly it is ending with a blue screen. see also
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124810.aspx (a bunch of other
articles of microsoft are mentioning the /3gb-switch incorrectly working
for
windows xp too).

That last article you quoted refers to Exchange Server 2003,
nothing to do with XP. The /3GB does work in XP, but
will not help with your friend's problem. PAE does not work
in XP. The purpose of PAE is to enable the use of more than
4GB of memory in 32 bit Windows Server editions.

What does Task Manager say about available RAM? If it
reports the same, it looks like 2GB is not accessible to XP.
There's a difference between installed and useable memory.
Msinfo32 will show all memory in the system whether XP
can access it, or not. For example, my Core i7 system with
6GB shows the full 6GB in XP Pro's msinfo32, but XP can
only address up to 4GB.

There is a setting in msconfig to limit available memory. Make
sure that's not selected. It's in the boot.ini /advanced options
tab. Also, check boot.ini to make sure there's no memory
limitation there.

 

[smlunatick]

good point.

unfortunately if forgot to mention that both task manager and process
monitor of sysinternals are showing 1.75 gb too...

This seems to indicate that the video card might be using the RAM in a
sharing mode, thus giving some RAM over to the video card to be used
as video RAM.

 

[Onsokumaru]

My guess is he added RAM that's not compatible with the existing RAM, or
it's not seated well. Take the old one(s) out, leave the new in, boot up,
and see what it says for total memory. If it works OK, put the other RAM
back in and see what it now says for total memory.

<snip>

He does state 4 GB is visible in the BIOS, though I assume he means post
screen also.

 

[SC Tom]

<snip>

He does state 4 GB is visible in the BIOS, though I assume he means post
screen also.

True, but I've seen stranger things than that happen with memory, which is
why I suggested what I did.

SC Tom