Od memory limit XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Len Cuff
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Len Cuff

Son has just increased his memory from 2Gb to 4Gb in his PC but when
he looks at the System Properties it's saying he has 2.93Gb of memory?
Looking through the Knowledge Base, it states that both XP Pro and
Home support up to 4Gb RAM so what's he doing wrong?

TIA


cheers,
Len
 
Len said:
Son has just increased his memory from 2Gb to 4Gb in his PC but when
he looks at the System Properties it's saying he has 2.93Gb of
memory? Looking through the Knowledge Base, it states that both XP
Pro and Home support up to 4Gb RAM so what's he doing wrong?
Click to expand...


Nothing.
Supporting it and giving it to applications are two different things.

You could add the /3GB switch to the boot.ini file and *maybe* start using
more for applications and lessfor the operating system - but normally - if
you put 4GB of memory in a 32bit Windows XP system, 2GB for applications,
2GB for the OS. The /3GB switch *can* change that to 3GB for applications,
1GB for the OS... so try that...
 
You could also add the /PAE switch to boot.ini (It stands for Physical
Address Extension). A Google search on boot.ini will provide other
parameters/switches/info
 
Son has just increased his memory from 2Gb to 4Gb in his PC but when
he looks at the System Properties it's saying he has 2.93Gb of memory?
Looking through the Knowledge Base, it states that both XP Pro and
Home support up to 4Gb RAM so what's he doing wrong?
Click to expand...



He's not doing anything wrong. 32-bit XP has an address space of 4GB.
However the 4GB address space has to be shared with memory used for
other devices. So Windows (not just XP but all 32-bit versions,
including 32-bit Vista) can't use that entire 4GB for itself.

How much it can use is around 3GB, but depends on what devices are
installed. It's normally a little more than 3GB. So installing more
than about 3GB of RAM is usually a waste of money.
 
Son has just increased his memory from 2Gb to 4Gb in his PC but when
he looks at the System Properties it's saying he has 2.93Gb of memory?
Looking through the Knowledge Base, it states that both XP Pro and
Home support up to 4Gb RAM so what's he doing wrong?
Click to expand...

Some hardware supports a maximum of 3Gb. Did you check the Hardware
specifications before buying the 4th Gb?

Examples include certain Lenovo Thinkpads and desktops (specifically, my
IBM 8212 is affected).
 
Some hardware supports a maximum of 3Gb. Did you check the Hardware
specifications before buying the 4th Gb?

Examples include certain Lenovo Thinkpads and desktops (specifically, my
IBM 8212 is affected).
Click to expand...

This is a new PC and the mobo is quite happy with 4Gb and reports it
as such.

cheers,
Len
 
This is a new PC and the mobo is quite happy with 4Gb and reports it
as such.
Click to expand...

Well, you're probably not affected then. But your statement above is
precisely what we inside IBM have been seeing and complaining about for
many months now. The BIOS knows that the memory above 3Gb is there, but
there is absolutely no way that any software or operating system can get
at it ON SYSTEMS WHICH HAVE THIS PARTICULAR RESTRICTION.

One of the most interesting aspects of this problem is that a
significant proportion of technically competent people simply will not
accept that the problem exists, so they go off and purchase 4Gb and try
for themselves. To date, no one has found a way of accessing the 4th Gb
on these systems.

If the system is cabable of running in 64-bit mode then the problem goes
away, even on systems with the affected hardware.
 
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