4GB on x86 OS

joesaiditstrue · Aug 10, 2007

just curious if it's even possible to get windows to acknowledge that i have 4GB of ram installed

i understand the memory limitations of 32-bit OS, and how they're capable of only using up to 4GB of memory, however after doing about an hours worth of googling, many searches came up with the /bcdedit /pae forceenable command, which doesn't work for me, but was curious if anyone else has been able to get their OS to display 4GB of memory installed?

it's just strange, i haven't seen any posts about this issue on here, and i'm sure there are numerous people with a 32-bit OS with 4+GB of ram installed

redduc900 · Aug 10, 2007

joesaiditstrue said:
it's just strange, i haven't seen any posts about this issue on here, and i'm sure there are numerous people with a 32-bit OS with 4+GB of ram installed

These are the search results of typing 4GB into the OCForums Search engine, and specifying to search only in the Microsoft Operating Systems forum...

http://www.ocforums.com/search.php?searchid=2215440

... which results in 171 threads related to 4GB, many of which correspond to running 4GB of RAM w/ an x86 version of Windows.

Moto7451 · Aug 10, 2007

PAE (or Physical Address Extension) is a way to get >4GB of ram on CPUs that support 36bit (or more) memory addressing in 32bit Operating Systems. Windows XP however doesn't support this. See the link below for more info.

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

Edit: Your issue is probably related to the chipset reserving part of the memory range for it's own devices. That unfortunately can't be fixed by anything besides a 64bit OS (seeing as PAE isn't available to you) to my knowledge.

joesaiditstrue · Aug 10, 2007

Moto7451 said:
PAE (or Physical Address Extension) is a way to get >4GB of ram on CPUs that support 36bit (or more) memory addressing in 32bit Operating Systems. Windows XP however doesn't support this. See the link below for more info.

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

Edit: Your issue is probably related to the chipset reserving part of the memory range for it's own devices. That unfortunately can't be fixed by anything besides a 64bit OS (seeing as PAE isn't available to you) to my knowledge.

Don't misunderstand, PAE is available to me, I have it enabled by using bcdedit

I'm using Vista 32-bit, with an e6300 if that matters

Moto7451 · Aug 10, 2007

Yes, that matters.

abbaon @RPGWatch Forums said:
February 24th, 2007, 10:38
http://forums.techarena.in/showpost.php?p=2385819&postcount=12
I opened a service request with Microsoft (SRZ061127002189) to get a
definitive answer.

Here a summary of their answer:
32bit Vista does by design not(!) use the full 4GB of physically installed
RAM.
Technically it could use 4GB (by using PAE to access the memory remapped by
the mainboard above the 4GB address boundary). By a marketing design
decision all Windows Vista 32bit editions are limited to 4GB address space.
Vista Starter ist limited to 1GB. "This is based on marketing decisions and
cannot be cheated with the PAE-Kernel."
It looks like the answer you linked to is correct: 32bit Vista's 4GB address space can't accommodate both 4GB of RAM and the rest of your hardware. No workaround.

Unfortunately PAE is not available in 32bit vista as it was in 32bit XP and Windows Server 2003 standard. "Enabling" it won't make a difference. You have a 64bit CPU, you should see about installing the 64bit version.

kallejr · Aug 10, 2007

The confusing part might be, that Vista does come with a PAE kernel. But that is to support hardware enforced DEP (just like XP SP2), not to go beyond 4 GB.

4GB on x86 OS

joesaiditstrue

Member

redduc900

Inactive Moderator

Moto7451

Senior Something

joesaiditstrue

Member

Moto7451

Senior Something

kallejr

Registered

Similar threads