I just bought a new computer and i assemble it myself. After i finished assemble it, and installed Windows XP 32 bit. I found that my 4GB of RAM only detect about 2.75GB. I thought that my memory or motherboard was broken. But after i restarted my PC, my BIOS detect my RAM as 4GB. I am a little bit confused at the beginning.
After i Google and find some information about it, i found that all Operating system 32 bit version have maximum 4GB of RAM. Because 2^32 = 4 294 967 296. That’s why the OS with 32bit version only support 4GB maximum memory. Even it is the newest Windows 7, it only support maximum 4GB. But the next question is why my PC only detect 2.75GB of RAM. I found that my Video Card also have 1 GB of RAM. So Windows XP will allocate that 1GB from Video memory, about 200MB of onboard video memory, and the rest 2.75GB from the RAM.
Is there a way to make Windows XP 32bit version detect more than 4GB of RAM? There were arguments in some forums says that you can add “/PAE” at the boot.ini. So the windows can detect more than 4GB of RAM. But since Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Microsoft doesn’t use “/PAE” config anymore since many compatibility issue with the many applications.
So what i have to do? I should leave it or upgrade it to 64bit version. But i choose 32 bit version for now. Since not so many application support 64 bit version.
So how about you?
Hi Ivan,
i have the same experience too.
Windows XP 32 bit version won't recognize my 4GB memory.
But i know the reason why.
Maybe i should upgrade to 64 bit version now.
Thanks, now i feel less stress 🙂
J
Hi Johnny,
Yes Windows XP 32 bit won't recognize fully 4GB memory of RAM as i said in my post.
Anyway i'm happy to hear that you feel less stress now :p
Cheers
Hi Ivan,
i have the same experience too.
Windows XP 32 bit version won't recognize my 4GB memory.
But i know the reason why.
Maybe i should upgrade to 64 bit version now.
Thanks, now i feel less stress 🙂
J
Hi Johnny,
Yes Windows XP 32 bit won't recognize fully 4GB memory of RAM as i said in my post.
Anyway i'm happy to hear that you feel less stress now :p
Cheers
Hello Ivan,
I faced with the same problem after buying notebook. The original OS is Linux(SUSE Linux Enterprise 11) , but due to widespread guys installed Win7 32 bit edition, and my notebook has 4 GB or RAM, which is successfully detected in BIOS, but not in Windows. So back to Linux))
With 32 bits (regardless of OS) the total addressable memory is 4gb, but the system must also be able to access the bios and devices such as memory cards. Even though these devices may have their own on-board memory, there is still only 4gb of addressable space. Say your bios requires 512k of addressable space. 512K will be lopped off of the available address space to access the bios. That leaves a 512k hole in the computer's physical memory that will never be accessed. It's not a matter of windows recognizing the memory, but a problem of being able to access it. It's a basic limitation of 32-bit OSs.
With 32 bits (regardless of OS) the total addressable memory is 4gb, but the system must also be able to access the bios and devices such as memory cards. Even though these devices may have their own on-board memory, there is still only 4gb of addressable space. Say your bios requires 512k of addressable space. 512K will be lopped off of the available address space to access the bios. That leaves a 512k hole in the computer's physical memory that will never be accessed. It's not a matter of windows recognizing the memory, but a problem of being able to access it. It's a basic limitation of 32-bit OSs.
I was trying to upgrade my older computer with some RAM (got another computer that runs Windows 7 64-bit) and have this same problem. After some research, I found that it's not true that 32-bit OS only supports 4GB. It's more of a licensing restriction on Windows to not use more than 4GB. You can go to Microsoft's website and see various 32-bit OS they released that supports more than 4GB (mostly "enterprise" versions).
You can either use XP SP1 or install Vista 32-bit, which has an unofficial patch available that disables the license check.
64 bit os can access even 128 gb ram so u have to upgrade to 64bit, it gives awesome perfomance!!!!!!!!!!!!
wow, why do you need such 128GB of ram for a PC?