4 Gig or ram- Only showing 3 gig

  • Thread starter Thread starter vyaw2003
  • Start date Start date
In the article I read about turning on PAE in a 32 bit OS it said this:

"On a computer that supports hardware-enabled Data Execution Prevention
(DEP) and is running a 32-bit version of the Windows operating system that
supports DEP, PAE is automatically enabled when DEP is enabled and, on all
32-bit versions of the Windows operating system, except Windows Server 2003
with SP1, PAE is disabled when you disable DEP."


My Vista system automaticly turned on DEP when I installed it and it is
running now for "essential windows and programs and services only" does this
still mean that PAE is enabled and working now on my system?
 
Issue: ON A COMPUTER THAT HAS 4GB OF RAM, THE SYSTEM PROPERTIES DIALOG BOX IN
WINDOWS VISTA MAY ERPORT LESS MEMORY THT YU EXPECT (LESS THAT 3GB)

Discussion: This problem occurs the address space is limited to 4 GB in a
32-bit hardware environment. Memory may be relocated to make room for
addresses that the basic input/output system (BIOS) reserves for hardware.
However, because of this limitation, windows Vista cannot access memory that
is relocated above the 4 GB boundary.

Solution:
1. Open an elevated command prompt

2. Type BCDEdit/set pae ForceEnable

3. press enter

The PAE parameter enables Physical adress extension (PAE). On 32-bit
versions of Windows, PAE is disabled by default. PAE is an addressing
strategy that uses a page-translation herarchy to enable systems with 32-bit
addressing to address more that 4 GB of physical memory. PAE also supports
several advanced system and processor features, such as Data Execution
Prevention (DEP;"No execute"), Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA), and
hot-add memory, so it is also used on computers with less than 4 GB of
memory. PAE must be supported by the processor.

On a computer that supports hardware-enabled Data Execution Prevention
(DEP), PAE is automatically enabled when DEP is enabled and automatically
disables when you disable DEP.

To enable PAE when DEP is disabled,you must enable PAE explicitly;

1. Open an elevated Command prompt.

2. Type BCDEdit/set nx AlwaysOff & BCDEdit/set pae ForceEnable

3. press enter

**for more information, check out microsoft KB Article 929605 - The system
memory that is reported in the System Information dialog box in Windows vista
is less than you expect if 4 GB of RAM is installed.**
 
Hi. The person who mentioned the 64bit edition I run vista ultimate and after
some research, I found that at best, the 32bit with 4g ram will show 3.5g?
This puzzled me, so after much digging I found that the 64 home basic will
see 4g, home premium is 16g and 64bit ultra, at 32g. I heard the same thing
from other sources. BUT WHY????
 
I'm sorry you are experiencing these probs...but I positively know that this
is the solution to your problem... I've done investigation work into this
problem.

When I built this computer from scratch, the motherboard I installed has 4
bays fitted to it which means that each bay can hold up to a maximum of 4 GB
of DDR2 ram, and at the moment, i'm only using just 1 GB but if I installed
4GB ram, and installed Windows Vista H.Premium 32 BIT, Vista would only
report that it can only see 3GB because that's the top memory spec that
microsoft built vista for, (this applies to all versions), if I wanted vista
to report the full amount of memory, even if 6 GB was installed, or 10 GB
installed, it would make much better thinking to put the 64 bit on first and
cover everything, than rather have the 32 bit to cover my first 3 GB, and
upgrade later.

Secondly, if you click on this web site address (or you can use the "Cut &
Paste" option), this site lists how much memory vista can handle per edition
following an upgrade from XP.

Version Limit in 32-bit Windows Limit in
64-bit Windows

Windows Vista Ultimate 4 GB 128 GB
Windows Vista Enterprise 4 GB 128 GB
Windows Vista Business 4 GB 128 GB
Windows Vista Home Premium 4 GB 16 GB
Windows Vista Home Basic 4 GB 8 GB
Windows Vista Starter 1 GB Not
applicable

These Websites, - Explains Everything about vista 64 bit versions and what
they will and will not accept.

1: http://www.start64.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
2:
http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Hardware_Compatibility_List
3:
http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_RTM_Software_Compatibility_List
 
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