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rasheed21

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20 years ago

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rasheed21

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6971

February 10th, 2007 01:00

Vista problem with memory(RAM) reporting.

I have an XPS 410 system with 4GB of RAM, however, Vista reports that I have only 3GB (more precisely 3069.14MB). What happened to my other Gig??
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    pcgeek11

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    Posted February 10th, 2007 06:00

    Posted earlier but here it is again:
     
    The 32-bit versions are artificially limited to 4G meaning that they will never touch an address greater than 4GB no matter how much memory is installed even if PAE is enabled.
     
    The reason you only see somewhere between 2G and 3.8G is because the hardware requires some of those memory addresses to work. And it also seems that PCI-E video cards get their entire memory range mapped into the host's memory so if you have a card with 512M of memory you'll lose 512M worth of physical memory addresses.

    If you enable the memory hole in the BIOS it'll remap the physical memory above the 4G mark so that it can be used again, but you'll need an OS that actually let you use those addresses and 32-bit XP and Vista aren't in that list.
     
    You would need Vista X64 bit  or one of the other OS choices Linux X64 ... to be able to actually see the address' above the 4 Gig Limit in the 32 bit versions.
     
    That is why. Windows Vista is using it, it is just a reporting issue.
    pcgeek11


    Message Edited by pcgeek11 on 02-10-2007 03:01 AM
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    lyonadmiral

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    Posted February 10th, 2007 12:00

    If there isn't an option in the BIOS to adjust the memory hole, I suppose we are ?  I'm using Vista 64-bit on an  OptiPlex GX620 with 4 gigs of ram and my video card chews up 512 of main memory like you exampled.
     
    Thanks
    Dan
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    pcgeek11

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    Posted February 11th, 2007 01:00

    It isn't all bad as the RAM is there and it is being used. This is a common misconception about RAM. But you have to remember that RAM that isn't being used is wasted, and not doing you any good at all.
     
    pcgeek11
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    Prof007

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    Posted February 11th, 2007 05:00

    what possibly is going to use more than 3GB (currently) anyway?

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