WiFi Card will not find networks when > 2GB RAM

[Dave Harry]

I have two PCI wireless network cards from two different brands, Netgear
WG311V2 and D-Link DWl-G520+.

My Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP2 system has 4GB of RAM.

Neither will detect wireless networks when the system RAM is greater than
2GB.
If I pull out one 2GB stick, it works fine. Put it back in, failure to see
networks.

I tried the Netgear on a Windows 2003 Standard 32 bit SP2 with 4GB of RAM
and it worked ok.

Any help?

 

[ohaya]

I have two PCI wireless network cards from two different brands, Netgear
WG311V2 and D-Link DWl-G520+.

My Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP2 system has 4GB of RAM.

Neither will detect wireless networks when the system RAM is greater
than 2GB.
If I pull out one 2GB stick, it works fine. Put it back in, failure to
see networks.

I tried the Netgear on a Windows 2003 Standard 32 bit SP2 with 4GB of
RAM and it worked ok.

Any help?

Hi,

When you said "Vista Ultimate" and the "Win2K3", did you have those both
on the same physical systems, or are you talking about two different
physical machines?

If the latter, then many the one with Vista has bad memory? Maybe run a
memory test (memtest) on the 4GB RAM?

Jim

 

[smlunatick]

I have two PCI wireless network cards from two different brands, Netgear
WG311V2 and D-Link DWl-G520+.

My Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP2 system has 4GB of RAM.

Neither will detect wireless networks when the system RAM is greater than
2GB.
If I pull out one 2GB stick, it works fine. Put it back in, failure to see
networks.

I tried the Netgear on a Windows 2003 Standard 32 bit SP2 with 4GB of RAM
and it worked ok.

Any help?

All 32 bit versions of Windows will not use the full 4GB of RAM. It
will limit the RAM available to 3.25 to 3.5 GB.

As previously stated, bad RAM is likely.

 

[ohaya]

All 32 bit versions of Windows will not use the full 4GB of RAM. It
will limit the RAM available to 3.25 to 3.5 GB.

As previously stated, bad RAM is likely.

Hi,

There is one "kind of" exception to that. Some of the "higher" versions
of 32-bit Windows 2003 Server (e.g., Enterprise and DataCenter, I
think) will recognize memory > 4GB. I run Win2K3 Enterprise on my main
desktop for that reason.

I think that an individual app can't use >3GB, but I use this because
sometimes, when I am doing development, I run a bunch of virtual
machines, and they each take up physical memory (each < 3GB), so this
allows me to run more guests simulataneously (I currently have 6GB in my
machine).

Jim

 

[Jack [MVP-Networking]]

Hi
I doubt that it has to do with Wireless.
There are probably some problems with the computer and its accommodation of
the memory when the OS is Not capable to recognize all the memory.
Jack (MS, MVP-Networking).

 

[Pavel A.]

I have two PCI wireless network cards from two different brands, Netgear
WG311V2 and D-Link DWl-G520+.

My Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP2 system has 4GB of RAM.

Neither will detect wireless networks when the system RAM is greater than
2GB.
If I pull out one 2GB stick, it works fine. Put it back in, failure to see
networks.

I tried the Netgear on a Windows 2003 Standard 32 bit SP2 with 4GB of RAM
and it worked ok.

Any help?

Does the wireless driver start at all with > 2 GB? ( do you see it in
device manager?)
Any relevant messages in the event log with > 2 GB?

--pa

 

[Steve Winograd [MS-MVP]]

Dude did you say you had 4gb ram on a 32bit pc? then thats why its
stuffing up cause you can only have up to 3gb ram on 32bit dude its
probably conflicting

This isn't quite right. A 32- bit operating system can address 4 GB
of memory space. However, Windows uses some of that memory space for
things like memory in video cards, so RAM at those same addresses
isn't accessible. But there's no 3 GB limit.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Desktop Experience)

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

 

[Dave Harry]

Does the wireless driver start at all with > 2 GB? ( do you see it in
device manager?)
Any relevant messages in the event log with > 2 GB?

--pa

The *full* 4GB of RAM is visible to the Vista 32 system and the 2003
Standard Edition which uses PAE.

Device manager reports "The device is working properly", supposedly. Only it
cannot detect any networks.

I think it's a driver fault with Vista and Windows 7. When I use 2003 on the
same hardware it's ok to 4GB.

Technically there is only an XP driver supplied, but it works also perfectly
on Vista =< 2GB, which is infuriating.
2G is fine. If I put even 2.5GB of RAM, no good. There must be a way to fool
it to thinking the system has less.

 

[smlunatick]

The *full* 4GB of RAM is visible to the Vista 32 system and the 2003
Standard Edition which uses PAE.

Device manager reports "The device is working properly", supposedly. Onlyit
cannot detect any networks.

I think it's a driver fault with Vista and Windows 7. When I use 2003 on the
same hardware it's ok to 4GB.

Technically there is only an XP driver supplied, but it works also perfectly
on Vista =< 2GB, which is infuriating.
2G is fine. If I put even 2.5GB of RAM, no good. There must be a way to fool
it to thinking the system has less.

I seen the 4GB of RAM be shown in Windows 32bit but the properties
tend to only report 3.25 - 3.5 GB of RAM usable.

By the usually definition, most Windows 32 bit version appear to use
3.25 to 3.5 GB of the 4.0 GB RAM. It appear to be a physical limit in
the 32 bit. One of the reason why there were very few Windows Pro 32
bit based computers sold at stores.

 

[Pavel A.]

The *full* 4GB of RAM is visible to the Vista 32 system and the 2003
Standard Edition which uses PAE.

Device manager reports "The device is working properly", supposedly. Only
it cannot detect any networks.

I think it's a driver fault with Vista and Windows 7. When I use 2003 on
the same hardware it's ok to 4GB.
Technically there is only an XP driver supplied, but it works also
perfectly on Vista =< 2GB, which is infuriating.

Agree, this looks like a driver fault.
However, it still is a question, is the culprit the WinXP driver, or the
Win7/Vista
component that adapts the XP wireless drivers to NT6 "native wi-fi" mode.
Unless both D-Link and Netgear cards are really made by same OEM,
this would mean a problem on Microsoft side.

2G is fine. If I put even 2.5GB of RAM, no good. There must be a way to
fool it to thinking the system has less.

Yes, there is a bootloader option that hides specified amount of RAM from
Windows
( it may be still visible to the BIOS...)

Regards,
--pa

 

[smlunatick]

The *full* 4GB of RAM is visible to the Vista 32 system and the 2003
Standard Edition which uses PAE.

Device manager reports "The device is working properly", supposedly. Onlyit
cannot detect any networks.

I think it's a driver fault with Vista and Windows 7. When I use 2003 on the
same hardware it's ok to 4GB.

Technically there is only an XP driver supplied, but it works also perfectly
on Vista =< 2GB, which is infuriating.
2G is fine. If I put even 2.5GB of RAM, no good. There must be a way to fool
it to thinking the system has less.

Which "wi-fi" management software used? Wireless Zero Configuration
or the card's manufacturer bundled utility.