SP1 shows 4GB RAM

  • Thread starter Thread starter Electron
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Electron

Did anyone notice that when you have SP1 (finally) installed, and you have
4GBytes of RAM, Vista will actually report 4GB in the Wecome Centre (Computer
Details) of Control panel?
 
Electron said:
Did anyone notice that when you have SP1 (finally) installed, and you
have
4GBytes of RAM, Vista will actually report 4GB in the Wecome Centre
(Computer
Details) of Control panel?
Click to expand...

Yes, but you don't really have any more available.
 
I was afraid of that, but then we are talking about 32-bit Vista, (which I
forgot to mention in my first post).
 
You did not magically obtain another 3/4 gig of RAM. It just shows you 4 gig
now - to match the amount in the RAM sticks. You still have a max of about
3.2 gig to use. M/S is just trying to make you happy!

Did they succeed?
 
Richard Urban said:
You did not magically obtain another 3/4 gig of RAM. It just shows you 4 gig
now - to match the amount in the RAM sticks. You still have a max of about
3.2 gig to use. M/S is just trying to make you happy!

Did they succeed?

Yes, just for a short while, until someone came along and spoilt my day! But I had a suspicion anyway it was too good to be true, having read technical reasons elsewhere about the limitations of 32-bit.
Click to expand...
 
Electron said:
Did anyone notice that when you have SP1 (finally) installed, and you
have
4GBytes of RAM, Vista will actually report 4GB in the Wecome Centre
(Computer
Details) of Control panel?
Click to expand...


Mine went from showing 3.25 to 18GB.
I have 4GB installed.
 
Did anyone notice that when you have SP1 (finally) installed, and you have
4GBytes of RAM, Vista will actually report 4GB in the Wecome Centre (Computer
Details) of Control panel?
Click to expand...


Yes. Although Microsoft did it in response to those who complained
about the way it was reported before, I think what they did was a bad
mistake. Yes, it now reports the full 4GB, but the amount that's
usable hasn't changed at all--it's still around 3.1GB, depending on
what hardware you have installed.

The result is that the report is now completely inaccurate.
 
Ken Blake said:
Yes. Although Microsoft did it in response to those who complained
about the way it was reported before, I think what they did was a bad
mistake. Yes, it now reports the full 4GB, but the amount that's
usable hasn't changed at all--it's still around 3.1GB, depending on
what hardware you have installed.

The result is that the report is now completely inaccurate.
Click to expand...

Back in the early 80s, someone discovered a way to use 128k of RAM on an
8-bit Z80 processor by switching between two banks of memory. Perhaps
sometime, a modern PC with 32 bit Vista will become that advanced, and
actually use the full 4gb (or more)
 
Donald L McDaniel said:
Mine went from showing 3.25 to 18GB.
I have 4GB installed.
Click to expand...

Wow!!! Will miracles never cease!!!

You must remember that sometimes, Vista shows ALL Memory -- both
physical as well as Virtual (i.e., "your paging file".)

It is possible that this is what you are seeing, but I kind of doubt
it, since Virtual memory seldom goes higher than twice the amount of
physical memory available to Windows for user files and data, when you
allow Windows to manage virtual memory.

Are you managing Virtual memory yourself, or allowing Windows to
manage it?

If you are, I would stop doing it, since 18GB of virtual memory (the
majority of it being your paging files) is WAY too much, and will
cause LONG pauses as it is rewritten on the HD. This may be observed
if you have long periods of time when the Disk is thrashing a great
deal, and you lose access to the Desktop for a few-to-many seconds. Or
this may be caused by the Vista Indexing Service each time the Index
is updated.

Or it may be caused by Vista Prefetch functions or by updating Flash
memory. You will usually notice this each time you start up.


Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the correct thread and article.
================================================
Click to expand...




Nah, I let Vista manage everything.
Clean install with all updates and SP1.

Task manager shows Physical Memory at 3325 MB total.
Page file shows 2036 / 6879M

System runs just fine with very few problems (deleting lottsa files from a
USB stick takes FOREVER!).
Heavy DX10 games run fluidly.
I'm quite satisfied.
 
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