Vista and upgrades in RAM I've upgraded to 6gb please help ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rick
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R

Rick

I've upgraded to 6 gb of ram from an original of 3gb. Regardless if Vista
(32) bit will display this on the OS properties page or not does this improve
my systems performance ? Is my system using this additional RAM or is it just
idle ?

I did that systems check for optimal performance and the score was 5.0. No I
am not computer savy that I'm sure that is obvious. Is there a fix to work
around where the OS will display the actual memory available ?

Sorry if I'm redundant not meaning to be. Please forward a fix and or
replies to (e-mail address removed) if you would thank you ;-) Oh btw I have
no idea how I signed into this Windows Live Care, luck I'd imagine, I've got
enough other mail accounts to drive me crazy, but use the main one for AOL.
 
Not correct, roy69.

32bit Windows can see 4GB of ram. It is the BIOS that is reserving memory
for hardware buffering and such. The amount reserved varies according to
the devices involved. The system properties page currently is showing the
remaining amount of memory which is available for user programs. This
varies according to the mobo and devices installed from 2.5 to 3.5.

Vista x86 SP1 changes what is being reported from the user space to the
amount of installed memory and beginning with SP1 you will see 4GB reported
if 4GB is installed. This is only a change is what is reported. It does
not increase the amount of memory available to user programs.
 
The change in reporting will be in SP1. However, the change will only be in
what is reported. Currently it is the memory available to user programs.
With SP1 it will be the amount of installed ram addressible by Vista x86.
You will probably only see 4GB reported in Vista x86 SP1.
 
Colin said:
The change in reporting will be in SP1. However, the change will only
be in what is reported. Currently it is the memory available to user
programs. With SP1 it will be the amount of installed ram addressible by
Vista x86. You will probably only see 4GB reported in Vista x86 SP1.
Click to expand...

The whole problem is that the missing ram is *not* addressable by
Windows. Either it is non-addressable in hardware, or the ram has been
remapped above 4G, where 32-bit vista has been programmed not to go up
 
Richard said:
The added memory will do nothing for you. No 32-bit OS can use more
than 4gb of memory in any case, Vista or not; so the added memory is not
being used at all.
Click to expand...
That topic has also been up a couple of times. "No 32-bit OS" is too
much. If the hardware permits it, it can. Just not 32-bit xp and vista,
but others can
 
XP x86 and Vista x86 certainly can. It is the BIOS that is reserving memory
for memory-mapped IO to devices. You don't see 4GB on the system properties
page because what is being reported there is only the memory available for
user programs. Even that will change with Vista SP1 and then you will see
the 4GB of installed memory reported.
 
Not true. Windows can address it but the BIOS is hiding address ranges set
aside by the BIOS for memory-mapped I/O. Vista SP1 changes the reporting to
show the amount of addressable ram installed (4GB) instead.
 
Colin said:
Not true. Windows can address it but the BIOS is hiding address ranges
set aside by the BIOS for memory-mapped I/O. Vista SP1 changes the
reporting to show the amount of addressable ram installed (4GB) instead.
Click to expand...

Yes Windows can address the whole 4GB "address space", but not all the
4GB RAM
 
Colin said:
XP x86 and Vista x86 certainly can. It is the BIOS that is reserving
memory for memory-mapped IO to devices. You don't see 4GB on the system
properties page because what is being reported there is only the memory
available for user programs. Even that will change with Vista SP1 and
then you will see the 4GB of installed memory reported.
Click to expand...

The talk was about addressing more than 4GB, neither xp nor vista will
do that
 
Hi Rick,

Unless you are planning on moving to the 64-bit version of Vista, then I'm
afraid you have wasted your money. A 32-bit system cannot access more than
4GB of RAM due to address limitations. Even then, it is actually only able to
access a maximum of around 3.5GB with the rest being mapped out to I/O ports
and other system devices (the actual figure varies according to the hardware
in your machine). The extra RAM will not be used and will be sitting idle.
You would have been better off just upgrading to 4GB as you would not have
been wasting so much space. As far as I am aware, the OS will probably not
report the full amount of RAM until SP1 is installed. On some motherboards,
fully populating all the available RAM slots can actually degrade system
performance. This is because in order to use the extra slots the RAM
frequency is actually backed down from, for example, 200MHz (DDR-400 /
PC3200) rate to 166MHz (DDR-333 / PC 2700) rate. You need to check with your
motherboard manual whether or not this is the case. If it is, then a BIOS
upgrade may fix this issue.
Dwarf
 
Yes it can unless the BIOS is reserving addresses for something else like
device buffering, which on today's mobos is usually the case.
 
Colin said:
Yes it can unless the BIOS is reserving addresses for something else
like device buffering, which on today's mobos is usually the case.
Click to expand...

Yes, but that is not realistic in the real world. All systems will use
up some of the address space for MMIO.
 
My point is that there is nothing in Windows that precludes use of any part
of the 4GB of installed ram. If the mobo manufacturer decided to write the
BIOS to use the 3rd GB range of absolute addresses instead of the 4th,
Windows would happily use the 1st, 2nd, and 4th GB's instead of the 1st,
2nd, and 3rd. The urban legend that Windows cannot use all 4GB is not true.
 
Colin said:
My point is that there is nothing in Windows that precludes use of any
part of the 4GB of installed ram. If the mobo manufacturer decided to
write the BIOS to use the 3rd GB range of absolute addresses instead of
the 4th, Windows would happily use the 1st, 2nd, and 4th GB's instead of
the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. The urban legend that Windows cannot use all 4GB
is not true.
Click to expand...

You just make it sound like Vista can use all 4GB RAM. It cannot. It's
true, if you move the MMIO space, then another part of the RAM will be
unavailable, but the end result will be the same.

You also use the term "user programs", I'm not sure if that includes
things like the kernel, because it does.
 
Dwarf said:
Hi Rick,

Unless you are planning on moving to the 64-bit version of Vista, then I'm
afraid you have wasted your money. A 32-bit system cannot access more than
4GB of RAM due to address limitations.
Click to expand...

I just got Vista Ultimate on DVD where I can choose to install any
version, 32-bit or 64-bit. What are the advantages of 64-bit Vista? Can
it use mor RAM? Any drawbacks?
 
If you are unfamiliar with 64-bit OSs then install 32-bit. Vista x86 can
address up to 4GB of ram. Vista x64 can address up to 128GB.

The real answer to your questions lie in what software you use. You haven't
said anything about that. I use Vista Ultimate x64 and enjoy it very much.
 
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