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XP not reporting 4 GB of ram

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rct99403

rct99403

IS-IT--Management
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Hello:
Have a new Dell laptop with 4GB's of ram BUT XP pro only reports 3.25. We did the PAE in the boot line no changes. Any thoughts????
RCT
 
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You need a 64 bit version of XP (or Vista) to put your hands on the full 4 gig (or more if you would have it), otherwise the I/O 'ports' of the Intel processor (architecture) won't be usable, as these are sort-of mapped to memory addresses. (they are actually in the memory address-space). The rather large 0.75 gig loss here is contributable to PCI and other I/O cards having directly accessible memory on them, like the Video adapter.

HTH
TonHu
 
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I would check the laptop has the latest firmware.

I suspect the OS has stolen it but 750MB is quite a lot!

You could always run it by Dell..........

Perhaps it is a known issue?
 
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Windows XP 32bit will only see 3 gigs of RAM, according to Microsoft (and now I can't find the article) the 32bit OS will use 3 gigs of RAM and use the other 1 gig for hardware performance. Like TonHu said, it's about numbers. Basically having anything more than 3 gigs on an XP machine isn't worth it unless you upgrade to the 64bit or use Vista.

Here is a detailed note from HP about the issue.

Cheers
Rob

If someone helps you, leave them a star. It is just a nice way to say "Thank you"

The answer is "PEBKAC!
 
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Here's a quote from [URL unfurl="true"]http://www.computerworld.com[/url]
As a side note, there is actually a way to change the way that Windows allocates the address spaces. You might have seen the occasional Windows Server deployment in which there was a /3GB switch used in the server's BOOT.INI file. The /3GB switch changes the memory allocation so that Windows is only allocated 1GB of address space, and user mode processes are allocated 3GB of address space. Splitting the address space like this helps Windows to better manage high demand applications such as Exchange Server. However, Windows is configured to have a 2GB address space for the operating system for a reason. If you use the /3GB switch, you can severely impact Windows ability to run multiple applications simultaneously. Furthermore, you should never use the /3GB switch on Small Business Server or on a domain controller
Click to expand...

Here are some technical explanations:

And finally, this might be the only link you need to go to:

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884
 
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