maximum ram on XP

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Is there a maximum Ram that we can put on a board with Windows XP
Professional. I put 4 sim of 1 gig. Windows XP see only 3 but bios see 4.
 
Wowee - why on earth do you need that much RAM with XP????

Sorry that I don't know the answer to your question but stunned as to why?!

Ady
 
Today Adrian Foot attempted to dazzle everyone with this
profound linguistic utterance
Wowee - why on earth do you need that much RAM with XP????
Click to expand...

I know people diddling with Vista that want 10X XP's max, more
if somebody will actually build a mobo for it.
Sorry that I don't know the answer to your question but
stunned as to why?!
Click to expand...

I have 4 gig for graphics. It would be far better if Windoze had
an intelligent paging scheme when it sees that much RAM, but
that's a story for another day.

To the OP's question, Windoze steals the top gig for its own
use, whatever that is, so I never see more than a tad under 3
gig, the difference being used by all my startup apps and
services.
 
Probably to
work with too many big picture files, or
develope cientist big calculations, or
another kind of heavy 3D games
or perhaps all together ...

best regards, Carlos
 
For the first question, I need 4 gig of ram, because Cadprocess (plugin of
Isodraw) crash when it arrive to to maximum allowed. (2gig). I have only
problem with 1 mecanical assembly that is the engine of the Liebherr T282B
mining truck. So we bought another 2 gig.

For the second question, if I go to the task manage, it say under Physical
Memory Total: 3406808 (k). So I calculate 1024 X 3 = 3072 and I add 3
zero's, it is near 3 gig if I consider that Windows XP is already taking
some. So I am missing 1 gig.
Is there some setting to do ? Because the Bio's see the 4 sims.
 
Today =?Utf-8?B?dG9wZGFyeWw=?= attempted to dazzle everyone
with this profound linguistic utterance
For the first question, I need 4 gig of ram, because
Cadprocess (plugin of Isodraw) crash when it arrive to to
maximum allowed. (2gig). I have only problem with 1
mecanical assembly that is the engine of the Liebherr T282B
mining truck. So we bought another 2 gig.

For the second question, if I go to the task manage, it say
under Physical Memory Total: 3406808 (k). So I calculate
1024 X 3 = 3072 and I add 3 zero's, it is near 3 gig if I
consider that Windows XP is already taking some. So I am
missing 1 gig. Is there some setting to do ? Because the
Bio's see the 4 sims.
Click to expand...

I understand completely, although I don't do CAD.

But, yes, you are "missing" a gig. It is "there", as BIOS can
see it, but if somebody believable comes along, other than an
MVP, I would certainly like to know what Windoze does with my
$202 worth of memory that it hijacked somehow for some purpose.

That I am aware of, there is no way to get Windoze to "see" the
highest gig. Maybe Linux but that's another discussion, isn't
it? <grin> Or, somehow get DOS 1.0 to install? No, not much good
there! <grin again>

Another imponderable for me is if I take out one "SIMM",
dropping to 3 gig in BIOS, would Windoze still report "nearly 3
gig" or would it drop to 2? Inquiring minds want to know...
 
topdaryl said:
Is there a maximum Ram that we can put on a board with Windows XP
Professional. I put 4 sim of 1 gig. Windows XP see only 3 but bios see 4.
Click to expand...

There's been a lot of these 4 Gig Ram questions lately. Apparently MS,
has been giving many people the Impression that 4 gig was the limit,
(if you do certian things to your various setup files) when in fact
WinXP will only see 3.2G
 
topdaryl said:
Is there a maximum Ram that we can put on a board with Windows XP
Professional. I put 4 sim of 1 gig. Windows XP see only 3 but bios see 4.
Click to expand...

Windows XP (all editions) is designed to use up to 4 gb of physical
RAM.

However there are some unresolved issues with regard to the proper
recognition of the full amount of RAM when there is more than 3 gb of
total RAM installed.

Sorry I cannot be more specific, but that is about all of the
information that there is available regarding this issue. There is a
/3gb switch parameter that you can add to the boot.ini file that may
alleviate the problem to at least some extent.

Available switch options for the Windows XP and the Windows Server
2003 Boot.ini files
Article ID : 833721
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=833721

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
Ron

As I understand, it depends upon the board config.. some systems appear to
hide less of the 4th gb than others, and it is limited to 32bit systems..
64bit systems running 64bit Windows allow XP to see and report all of the
4gb.. however, even in this case, the fact that XP reports all of it still
doesn't take away from the fact that the board will use some of the memory
exclusively..

I also understand that ONE of the reasons for the existence of the page/swap
file is to ensure that some RAM is available for general motherboard
duties..
 
All__Things__Mopar said:
Today =?Utf-8?B?dG9wZGFyeWw=?= attempted to dazzle everyone
with this profound linguistic utterance


I understand completely, although I don't do CAD.

But, yes, you are "missing" a gig. It is "there", as BIOS can
see it, but if somebody believable comes along, other than an
MVP, I would certainly like to know what Windoze does with my
$202 worth of memory that it hijacked somehow for some purpose.
Click to expand...

This is the same problem we faced with DOS. You could have 4 MB of
memory in the computer but without special programs you could only use
640 KB of it. I usually had to use a program like QEMM to make
available the memory, except for the parts that the drivers for the
video card, etc. used. No one has produced similar programs for Windows
as there is not enough of a market and Microsoft has a habit of offering
a free version of any popular program.
The problem occurs because Windows, and DOS, use a memory mapped model
for everything. This means that for a video card or network card to
work they have to have a specific range of memory addresses that they
can use for talking to the computer. As the processors at the time
could only address so much memory and the cost of memory was so high
that it was thought no one would use that much the devices were placed
in the upper range of the processor's range.
Of course now that the price of memory is so low that people can buy all
the memory that the processor can address they are running into
problems. The OS will not let them use the same addresses that are
reserved for the devices so they don't see all the memory they bought.
They can not move the devices to a new area as that will require all new
drivers for every device, along with all of the problems that will
arise, and not every computer running Windows would be able to address
the new memory addresses.
 
Mike is correct.
I have a Dell XPS 600 dual core with 4Gb. It only sees 2Gb and according to
Dell "Windows XP only supports 2Gb". No matter how many times Dell XPS owners
have complained, Dell keeps insisting they have done nothing to limit the
memory... However... We have XP Pro running on other dual core machines that
DO show more than 2Gb (3.2Gb on alienware and 3.1 on IBM). One user booted
Linux in debug and it logged a warning that the bios had reduced memory to
2Gb.
Those of us who purchased the XPS 600 w 4Gb (Dell will no longer sell the
XPS with 4Gb installed) lose out for what appears to be a marketing decision
that has crippled the machine.
 
As the linux user found out the capability of the operating system is
limited by the extent of the BIOS... HP has a severe memory problem
due to their shared memory architecture, in that filling all slots,
will cause at the very least a system crash if not severe errors in all
programs and files used while on the system. Such is the way of the
world...
 
I am running XP Pro with 3.0Gb of RAM installed on an ABIT IC7-MAX3
motherboard. Two each 1Gb modules and two each 512M modules. No problems
with XP seeing the memory. My guess is the problems occur when you go over
3.0Gb.
 
XP handles 4 gig of address space. hardware addressing comes out of the
4 gig. Motherboards and installed hardware will vary in the "missing
amount" of usable memory.
 
I recently upgraded to 4 gb. My mother board (ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe) reports 4
gb. Windows reported 3gb upon right-clicking on My Computer/Properties
General tab. I then added SLI graphics and my My Computer/Properties General
tab reported 2.75 gb. I also checked the Windows Task Manager Performance tab
and noticed:

Physical Memory:
Total: 2883052
Available: 2086888
System Cache: 1723920

Commit Charge:
Total: 800920
Limit: 4293544
Peak: 1201696

Kernel Memory:
Total: 162692
Paged: 111804
Nonpaged: 50896

Commit Charge: 780M / 4192

So what do these numbers mean in terms of how much RAM is being used?

Also my Nvidia control panel only reports:
Total physical memory available: 2,097,151 KB
Free physical memory: 2,082,512 KB

So what is going on with Nvidia not recognizing more RAM?

I also read the information posted earlier at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888137/en-us but I might not be technically
inclined enough to understand what it is talking about.

All of this begs the question, why on earth doesn’t someone make an
operating system and or hardware that allows for unlimited RAM? How could we
still be living in the archaic world of backwards thinking that no one will
ever need more RAM than a certain amount? It almost seems like the developers
purposely make a limit with computer technology to encourage more demand and
sales. I wonder if the computer industry will end up like the auto industry
and tend not to push better, more efficient technology.

Does Windows 64 bit actually help and if so I have heard that many programs
aren’t written for 64 bit OS. But most CPUs are 64 bit. So does a 64 bit CPU
benefit from the use of 64 bit OS? And if so why isn’t there more support for
64 bit OS?

Ok, this is all very interesting but it may be way over my head. What I
really want to know is whether or not my extra gig of RAM is actually being
used in some way. I have 4 gb and I want to know if in fact my system and
Windows is actually benefiting and using, even if it is in some small way,
the 4 gb of RAM.

Thanks
 
This is due to a limit that windows XP will handle. Depending on your
hardware if the motherboard supports 4Gb then windows can report anything
between 2.5 to 3.75Gb.
I'm sure someone will come up with a more detailed reason but it's just a
restriction on XP 32 bit, nothing to worry about.
Neil
 
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