What is the REAL scoop? XP & 4GHZ RAM!!

[mikeyluke]

Hello!!

I feel like a real dope. I just added another gig of RAM to m
computer. 4 ghz in all. The BIOS sees it but my system properties
Belarc doesn't see it They see 2.94ghz. I have checked my boot.ini an
have made sure that nothing is checked. I have also read that there i
an other PAE(???) box you can check in boot.ini but, there is no suc
box in msconfig. I have XP media sp2.

Any ideas? I have some idea that my problems involve virtual memor
mapping. XP doesn't see it and is unable to recognize it.

I have spent $400 in ram upgrades and I still can return 2 1ghz stick
but I have 15 days to figure out the deal or I'm out the $260 for the
sticks I bought 4 days ago. (Fry's 15 day return policy don't yo
know!)

Should I just stick to the 3 ghz that I had before and return the
1GHZ sticks?

Any help would be appreciated,

mike

 

[Bob Knowlden]

Here's one link:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=888137

Basically, though, it's a limitation in the 32 bit versions of XP in
addressing 4GB of RAM. You'll never "see" all 4GB in 32 bit Windows. 2.94
seems a bit low, though. Perhaps the /pae parameter may help that. (I
haven't faced that problem myself - I have 2 GB of total RAM.) I've seen a
few workstations at work configured for CAD (Solidworks). They usually come
with 4 GB of RAM installed, but show more like 3.2x GB in Windows.

If you really need the RAM, the most robust Windows-based fix for it would
be to get the 64 bit version of XP:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16837102065

This assumes that you have a CPU that supports the 64 bit extensions (AMD
Athlon 64, Intel P4 with EM64T, plus some server CPUs).

XP64 has the following drawbacks: you'd have to clean install it (no upgrade
from 32 bit XP), it may not support all the Media Center functions, there
may not be 64 bit drivers available for all your peripherals, there may be
compatibility problems with some of your 32 bit applications, you will
receive no support from Microsoft (it's OEM only), and its $140 plus $2
shipping.

If you'd like to experiment with XP64, there's a free trail download:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/evaluation/trial.mspx

(It's 550 MB, though.) It can be set up to dual-boot with your existing
version of XP.

For my own machine, while I have a 64 bit CPU (AMD Athlon 64 X2), I intend
to stay with 32 bit XP and 2 GB of RAM. There are no XP64 drivers for my
scanner, or for the parallel port dongle that I use to run some
special-purpose software. By the time 64 bit goes mainstream (Vista, in
early 2007), I'll be more sanguine about the inconvenience and expense of
the upgrade.


Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

 

[mikeyluke]

Hello!!

I feel like a real dope. I just added another gig of RAM to m
computer. 4 ghz in all. The BIOS sees it but my system properties
Belarc doesn't see it They see 2.94ghz. I have checked my boot.ini an
have made sure that nothing is checked. I have also read that there i
an other PAE(???) box you can check in boot.ini but, there is no suc
box in msconfig. I have XP media sp2.

Any ideas? I have some idea that my problems involve virtual memor
mapping. XP doesn't see it and is unable to recognize it.

I have spent $400 in ram upgrades and I still can return 2 1ghz stick
but I have 15 days to figure out the deal or I'm out the $260 for the
sticks I bought 4 days ago. (Fry's 15 day return policy don't yo
know!)

Should I just stick to the 3 ghz that I had before and return the
1GHZ sticks?

Any help would be appreciated,

mikey

BTW, judging by some of the problems I've seen here, I feel prett
lucky.

mike

 

[All Things Mopar]

Today mikeyluke commented courteously on the subject at hand

Hello!!

I feel like a real dope. I just added another gig of RAM to
my computer. 4 ghz in all.

didn't know RAM came in GHz, thought it came in Giga
/Bytes/...

The BIOS sees it but my system

properties & Belarc doesn't see it They see 2.94ghz. I have
checked my boot.ini and have made sure that nothing is
checked. I have also read that there is an other PAE(???)
box you can check in boot.ini but, there is no such box in
msconfig. I have XP media sp2.

Any ideas? I have some idea that my problems involve
virtual memory mapping. XP doesn't see it and is unable to
recognize it.

It is there if your BIOS sees it, but Windoze steals the top
gig for itself, so what you're seeing is all she wrote. I've
got the same thing. I sure hope Bill the Gates is making good
use of $202 worth of my memory. It is useless to me, SP2 still
pages when there's plenty of mem available and many of my apps
think they still have to write their undos to disk instead of
memory, then do a delayed write later.

 

[All Things Mopar]

Today Bob Knowlden commented courteously on the subject at
hand

Here's one link:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=888137

Basically, though, it's a limitation in the 32 bit versions
of XP in addressing 4GB of RAM. You'll never "see" all 4GB
in 32 bit Windows. 2.94 seems a bit low, though. Perhaps
the /pae parameter may help that. (I haven't faced that
problem myself - I have 2 GB of total RAM.) I've seen a few
workstations at work configured for CAD (Solidworks). They
usually come with 4 GB of RAM installed, but show more like
3.2x GB in Windows.

Task Manager shows 314,114KB on my system but even after a clean
boot with nothing but startup services I seldom see more than
2.6-2.8 gig.

If you really need the RAM, the most robust Windows-based
fix for it would be to get the 64 bit version of XP:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168371020
65

This assumes that you have a CPU that supports the 64 bit
extensions (AMD Athlon 64, Intel P4 with EM64T, plus some
server CPUs).

XP64 has the following drawbacks: you'd have to clean
install it (no upgrade from 32 bit XP), it may not support
all the Media Center functions, there may not be 64 bit
drivers available for all your peripherals, there may be
compatibility problems with some of your 32 bit
applications, you will receive no support from Microsoft
(it's OEM only), and its $140 plus $2 shipping.

These drawbacks, and many others, is why I didn't buy it for my
new PC. I also don't like beta testing on my Visa.

 

[Jim Lewandowski]

Today mikeyluke commented courteously on the subject at hand


didn't know RAM came in GHz, thought it came in Giga
/Bytes/...

The BIOS sees it but my system

It is there if your BIOS sees it, but Windoze steals the top
gig for itself, so what you're seeing is all she wrote. I've
got the same thing. I sure hope Bill the Gates is making good
use of $202 worth of my memory. It is useless to me, SP2 still
pages when there's plenty of mem available and many of my apps
think they still have to write their undos to disk instead of
memory, then do a delayed write later.

***
I think what you're seeing is pagefile allocation, NOT physical writing of RAM 4K pages to
the pagefile.sys.

I posted a lengthy post on Windows use of Virtual Memory somewhere in newsgroups to
illuminate what's really happening.

FWIW, use FILEMON by sysinternals.com and you'll see that no physical pagefile.sys access
until your PF usage (Task monitor) does get maxed to near your configured RAM.

As well, the upper gig used by Windows might be for the Cache manager which still utilizes
your memory before doing anything to disk.

JL

 

[Ron Martell]

***
I think what you're seeing is pagefile allocation, NOT physical writing of RAM 4K pages to
the pagefile.sys.

I posted a lengthy post on Windows use of Virtual Memory somewhere in newsgroups to
illuminate what's really happening.

FWIW, use FILEMON by sysinternals.com and you'll see that no physical pagefile.sys access
until your PF usage (Task monitor) does get maxed to near your configured RAM.

As well, the upper gig used by Windows might be for the Cache manager which still utilizes
your memory before doing anything to disk.

To see the actual physical usage of the pagefile get the Page File
Usage monitor written by MVP Bill James from either
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/

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."

 

[All Things Mopar]

Today Jim Lewandowski commented courteously on the subject at
hand

I think what you're seeing is pagefile allocation, NOT
physical writing of RAM 4K pages to the pagefile.sys.

No, I can see the pagefile size, max available memory, and
current free memory in Task Manager and can also go to the
processes tab to see what is consuming the resources. The
discussion is exactly what happens to the top gig on a 4 gig
machine.

If you know where it is, great. Better would be if you could
tell me and the others how to get Windoze to actually use it
in a practical way to speed up loading and running apps,
preventing unnecessary writing to pagefiles, and eliminating
at least one full giga byte worth of vitual memory - often
meaning "writing to disk to simulate more real mem".

I posted a lengthy post on Windows use of Virtual Memory
somewhere in newsgroups to illuminate what's really
happening.

FWIW, use FILEMON by sysinternals.com and you'll see that
no physical pagefile.sys access until your PF usage (Task
monitor) does get maxed to near your configured RAM.

As well, the upper gig used by Windows might be for the
Cache manager which still utilizes your memory before doing
anything to disk.

Jim, the upper one gig "might" be for anything, but two
questions remain: 1) why does Windoze steal a customers memory
in the first place and 2) why can't users generally see any
improvement in overall performance?

I've ran benchmarks to determine the size of pagefile to use,
but the difference between a 3 gig pagefile and zero is almost
too small to measure, which again makes me wonder what the
wonks from Redmond are doing with all that missing memory.

Well, I really know - M$ is noted for slow, bloatware, and
/not/ highly optimized, high performance, efficient operating
systems, so they simply grab whatever resources they can to
make as much improvement to an inherently crappy resource
utilizer and hope users won't notice. But, users /do/ notice
that they keep buying more and more powerful PCs with more and
more memory but apps never seem to be really that much faster
than their previous version.

When I switched from 98 to XP, I picked up loads of
advantages, chiefly much higher stability. But, despite a more
than doubling in CPU speed, faster HD and twice the memory,
real-world work was scarcely any faster. But, no, I have no
"facts" to support this assertion, just seat-of-the-pants
perceptions.

I'd like to optimize Windoze in any reasonable way if someone
believable would tell me how.

Meanwhile, have a good one!