RAM confusion

[James Padolsey]

I have 4GB installed, so obviously only 3GB is being displayed in
Windows. is it worth having the last GB in the computer,, is it doing
anything???

 

[Todd]

If you download Virtual PC from Microsoft, which is now free, you can use it
for that.

Todd

 

[Paul]

I have 4GB installed, so obviously only 3GB is being displayed in
Windows. is it worth having the last GB in the computer,, is it doing
anything???

It will be running dual channel with the four sticks. What
mode would it run in with only three sticks ?

Paul

 

[Bazzer Smith]

I have 4GB installed, so obviously only 3GB is being displayed in
Windows. is it worth having the last GB in the computer,, is it doing
anything???

I read something about my computer beinig able to hold
4GB but only 3GB would work or somthing lilke that
could someone explain.

To answer your question I would assume it is consuming energy
irregardless of whether it useable.

 

[Mike Walsh]

A 32bit address bus can address 4 GB memory. When 32 bit OSs became available 4 GB was thought to be more than anyone would ever need (the same as they thought about 640 KB with DOS) and the address space was arbitrarily divided with 2 GB available for the OS and 2 GB available for applications. Since the OSs at the time did not require much memory you were limited to slightly more than 2 GB of useful memory. You can now use the /3GB switch in Boot.ini to make 3 GB available to applications. It is still doubtful if it is worthwhile in most cases to have more than 3 GB, or even more than 2 GB, because most applications can not use more than 2 GB and even a bloated OS such as WinXP will not use much of the memory reserved for it.