vista ultimative 64 not showing ram

[amarok]

Hi guys,

I have just installed vista ultimative 64 danish version
(on my earlier pc I had home premium 32)...

I have 4 blocks a 1 gb pc6600 ddr II ram but the system
only shows 2.75 gb out of the 4 gb installed.
My mainboard is a new asus p5b-v with totally updated bios
and all of my ram has been checked and they work.
The software program "everest" (shows all system info)
shows all the ram ...but no other software does it...
photoshop cs3 only shows 2.75 gb ram available so.......
is there some setting in vista 64 that need to be changed or
is there an error in the operating system? -
please help..

Best regards

Mike

 

[Andrew McLaren]

I have 4 blocks a 1 gb pc6600 ddr II ram but the system
only shows 2.75 gb out of the 4 gb installed.
My mainboard is a new asus p5b-v with totally updated bios
and all of my ram has been checked and they work.
The software program "everest" (shows all system info)
shows all the ram ...but no other software does it...
photoshop cs3 only shows 2.75 gb ram available so.......
is there some setting in vista 64 that need to be changed or is there an
error in the operating system? -

I'm afraid this sounds normal, and "by design". Even if you have 4GB of
physical memory, the operating system can only address between 2.8 and 3.2GB
of RAM.

The remaining 1G or so is reserved for hardware addresses. If you are very
lucky, your motherboard may be able to re-map the unused physical RAM to
higher address pages. Bu this is not yet a common feature in consumer
motherboards.

There's a good explanation here, with a few links to extra technical
details:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html

Basically it's not a problem in Windows, or the your RAM, or even the
hardware, as such. All those hardware addresses needed to go somewhere! The
moral is, don't bother buying 4GB of memory, you probably won't be able to
use it. If your mother board does support page remapping you may be able to
recover some memory by fiddling in the BIOS.

Sorry for the bad news,

 

[Michael Solomon]

I'm afraid this sounds normal, and "by design". Even if you have 4GB of
physical memory, the operating system can only address between 2.8 and
3.2GB of RAM.

The remaining 1G or so is reserved for hardware addresses. If you are very
lucky, your motherboard may be able to re-map the unused physical RAM to
higher address pages. Bu this is not yet a common feature in consumer
motherboards.

There's a good explanation here, with a few links to extra technical
details:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html

Basically it's not a problem in Windows, or the your RAM, or even the
hardware, as such. All those hardware addresses needed to go somewhere!
The moral is, don't bother buying 4GB of memory, you probably won't be
able to use it. If your mother board does support page remapping you may
be able to recover some memory by fiddling in the BIOS.

Sorry for the bad news,

Andrew, he's using Vista 64-bit not 32-bit.

 

[Michael Solomon]

Hi guys,

I have just installed vista ultimative 64 danish version
(on my earlier pc I had home premium 32)...

I have 4 blocks a 1 gb pc6600 ddr II ram but the system
only shows 2.75 gb out of the 4 gb installed.
My mainboard is a new asus p5b-v with totally updated bios
and all of my ram has been checked and they work.
The software program "everest" (shows all system info)
shows all the ram ...but no other software does it...
photoshop cs3 only shows 2.75 gb ram available so.......
is there some setting in vista 64 that need to be changed or is there an
error in the operating system? -
please help..

Best regards

Mike

Mike, check out the following Knowledge Base Article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/

 

[Cal Bear '66]

But he is running Vista X64

My Vista x64 Business recognizes all of my 4GB of memory.

 

[Andrew McLaren]

Andrew, he's using Vista 64-bit not 32-bit.

Hi Michael,

Correct - and, the "bit-ness" of the Operating System doess not matter. Both
32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows can be affected by this problem.

The only advantage you get from 64 bit Windows (in this particular regard)
is that the OS can address Terabytes of memory. So with 64 bit Windows there
is the possibility for the hardware to re-map pages of memory from the
reserved hardware range (2.75GB up to 4GB), into the address space somewhere
above 4GB - which is stil visible to the OS. That way, you get to utilise
all your physical RAM, even though there's a big hole in the middle of the
virtual address space.

To "see" a full 4GB of RAM requires a careful alignment of Operating System,
CPU, chipset, BIOS, and physical memory. Whether the OS is 32 bit or 64 bit,
is not the only variable. If (for example) the BIOS is blocking access to
the sub-4GB range, you can't automagically make it available to the
operating system, just by using 64-bit memory addressing (leaving aside
jiggery-pokery like PAE).

If the motherboard was fully populated with 8GB of RAM, then 64 Windows
could certainly see more than 4GB - maybe up to 6.75GB, in Mike's case. So
it's definitely beneficial to be running 64 bit Windows.

Mike's best shot would be to carefully study the Asus motherboard manual
(http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5B-V)
to see what options might exist for re-mapping memory pages from the 2.75GB
to 4GB range.

Let me know if you think I'm wrong - happy to discuss further!

Cheers,

 

[Andrew McLaren]

But he is running Vista X64

My Vista x64 Business recognizes all of my 4GB of memory.

Hi Cal Bear!

Yep. You are lucky As per my separate reply to Mike Solomon, 64 bit
Windows is a necessary, but not sufficient, pre-condition to seeing 4GB of
RAM. If you have the right version of Windows, and the right CPU, and the
right chipset, and the right BIOS, and 4+GB of physical RAM, then you can
indeed see 4GB of RAM!

Unfortunately for Mike (the OP, not Mike Solomon) it sounds like he is
missing one of these crucial factors. Thus, he sees somewhat less than the
4GB. Hopefully it can be adjusted by configuring the BIOS on his mother
board.

Best regards,
Andrew

 

[Michael Solomon]

Hi Michael,

Correct - and, the "bit-ness" of the Operating System doess not matter.
Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows can be affected by this
problem.

The only advantage you get from 64 bit Windows (in this particular regard)
is that the OS can address Terabytes of memory. So with 64 bit Windows
there is the possibility for the hardware to re-map pages of memory from
the reserved hardware range (2.75GB up to 4GB), into the address space
somewhere above 4GB - which is stil visible to the OS. That way, you get
to utilise all your physical RAM, even though there's a big hole in the
middle of the virtual address space.

To "see" a full 4GB of RAM requires a careful alignment of Operating
System, CPU, chipset, BIOS, and physical memory. Whether the OS is 32 bit
or 64 bit, is not the only variable. If (for example) the BIOS is blocking
access to the sub-4GB range, you can't automagically make it available to
the operating system, just by using 64-bit memory addressing (leaving
aside jiggery-pokery like PAE).

If the motherboard was fully populated with 8GB of RAM, then 64 Windows
could certainly see more than 4GB - maybe up to 6.75GB, in Mike's case. So
it's definitely beneficial to be running 64 bit Windows.

Mike's best shot would be to carefully study the Asus motherboard manual
(http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5B-V)
to see what options might exist for re-mapping memory pages from the
2.75GB to 4GB range.

Let me know if you think I'm wrong - happy to discuss further!

Cheers,

No, I don't think you're wrong. However, I got the impression from your
initial response you were applying the "limitation" of the 32-bit OS to the
64-bit. As already has been pointed out in this thread, some people never
have to do anything to enable the ability to see all 4GB. It's true, in
some cases, the user might have to enable memory remapping in the BIOS or
various other tweaks to get it done but the impression I got from your
original response was that you were essentially telling the OP to forget it
when, in fact, he had options open to him before giving up.

 

[Andrew McLaren]

various other tweaks to get it done but the impression I got from your
original response was that you were essentially telling the OP to forget
it when, in fact, he had options open to him before giving up.

Fair comment ... I suppose I did sound prematurely pessimistic, in my first
response!

It looks like the remap function *is* supported in the P5B-V's BIOS, and was
fixed to work correctly in BIOS version 1005, released last month:

From
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5B-V
<quote>
Version 1005 2007/06/07 update

Description P5B-V BIOS 1005
"Support new CPUs. Please refer to our website at:
http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx
Fixed plug 4GB memory with remap function enabled will cause fail to install
Windows Vista 64 bit"

File Size 789.51 (KBytes)

</quote>

Just an extra wrinkle in the pudding - OP Mike noticed the memory problem,
while he was running Photoshop CS3. I haven't upgraded CS2 yet, but I think
CS3 is still a purely 32-bit set of applications. If so, Photoshop is
running as a 32-bit process in the WoW64 layer; not as a native 64-bit
process. Hence, it is by no means automatic that Photoshop will take
advantage of the 64 bit memory address range, even if it is running 64 bit
Windows.

The WoW64 layer can make a full 4GB of virtual address space available to 32
bit applications (which is good!). But this only happens if the application
is linked with the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE flag in the EXE header.
Until lately, very few 32 bit apps had this (SQL Server the only one I
know). Possibly the new Photoshop CS3 has this. An "ordianry" 32 bit
application still only sees 2Gb of user mode memory space, even when running
on the WoW64 on 64 bit Windows.

Of course, it would be nice for Windows itself to exploit the full 4GB of
physical memory. But it may not benefit Photoshop much as an individual
application, if Photoshop can still only use the 2GB of user mode, 32-bit
memory.

Anyway I haven't really thought through all the implications yet, for OP
Mike's problem. I just thought I'd through this into the mix. Still thinking
....

Cheers,

 

[Andrew McLaren]

Hi Mike,

Following up the interveaning discussion, I have a few questions for you:

- Which BIOS version do you have installed (I know you said the latest,
which is that?).

- Look at the System Properties in Windows (go to Start Menu, Computer,
right-click and choose Properties). How much memory is reported, there? That
is: how much memory is Windows itself reporting?

- you said "photoshop cs3 only shows 2.75 gb ram available", where are you
seeing that? In Performance Preferences, or System Info? In Photoshop if you
go to Help, System Info, you should see some likes like:
Built-in memory: 3053 MB
Free memory: 823 MB
Memory available to Photoshop: 2786 MB
Memory used by Photoshop: 55 %
What is reported here by Photoshop on your system? (I'm working from
Photoshop CS2 so may be slightly different layout).

BTW you've probably already seen this, but I found a lot of interesting info
about Photoshop CS3's memory mamangement in this Abobe KB article:
http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401088

Cheers,

 

[Andrew McLaren]

There is no setting that has to be changed. I run Vista Ultimate 64
with 4 gigs and it all shows fine.

As per my separate replies in this thread ... in an ideal world, and with
recent hardware, you are correct: 64-bit Windows will automagically see all
4GB or more of RAM.

However there are many reasons why even 64 bit Windows will not see all 4GB
of memory, even if a machine has 4GB of RAM physically present on the
motherboard. You can read this Intel paper, to find out about some of the
technical issues involved. There are many other useful references on the web
as well:
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/4GB_Rev1.pdf

It could be your motherboard doesn't support 4 gigs. However I doubt
that is the case since it shows more than 2 gigs. I haven't seen a
motherboard yet whith a 3gig limit. Usually it's in multiples of 2.

As above, the problem is nothing to do with how much RAM is physically
inserted into the machine - 2GB, 4GB, 8GB or more. To see 4GB requires a
co-ordinated effort of Operating System, CPU, chipset and BIOS. If any one
of these doesn't co-operate, you won't seee 4GB, even with 8GB physically
inserted.

Sorry to be a pedantic git but there's a lot of confusion around this
topic.

Vi ses,

 

[Cal Bear '66]

Thank you for the explanations in this thread.

Wow! I do feel lucky!

I had to buy this PC (HP AMD 64 X2) off the shelf from Best Buy last August in
an emergency (left the old one on when I went out, without the AC on, and it was
smoking when I came home).

Both Vista Ultimate x86 and Vista Business x64 are performing GREAT with no
problems at all. Vista feels much, much more responsive, reliable and smoother
than XP was on this machine.

 

[amarok]

Thanks a lot Andrew...

I did have the 1005 biosversion (only 2 months old)
- my asusupdate software said I had the latest version,
but the link you provided showed otherwise....
I downloaded the new 1102 version from june...
and voila!!! I now have 3.93 GB ram showing...(and working)

problem solved...but only with your help

(If you were a woman I would kiss you) *lool*


Best regards

Mike

 

[Andrew McLaren]

I downloaded the new 1102 version from june...
and voila!!! I now have 3.93 GB ram showing...(and working)
problem solved...but only with your help
(If you were a woman I would kiss you) *lool*

Outstanding! If you were a woman, I'd let you kiss me )

That's a great result, thanks for letting us know.

Have fun with your Photoshop CS3 (I'm still saving my pennies to upgrade)