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-Leppis
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I bought 2 x 2GB sticks for this comp and it only shows that I have 3.3GB. Should it be like that or what's up?
Motherboard should be fine with it. Says it supports up to 8GB.
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| 07/08/08 14:17 |
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RazoMoto
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Your not using a 64-Bit Operating System most likely, 32 Bit does not support 4GB of RAM, it will showup as 3.2, 3.2 or 3.4 GB, but not 4.
So your motherboard may support 8GB, but your Operating System does not.
***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***
~Lucky Mac Luckerton~ PH.D In Awesome, M.A. In Madness, B.A. In Relax (with a minor in World Domination)
It's so nice to be insane, no one asks you to explain!
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| 07/08/08 14:19 |
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-Leppis
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Okies.. guess I can live with the 3.3GB for now.
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| 07/08/08 14:24 |
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-Leppis
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Oh BTW.. friend says I should update to 64bit. Can you do that? I thought you either buy 32bit or 64bit from the store and that's it?
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| 07/08/08 14:29 |
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Chrisworld
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| QUOTE | | Oh BTW.. friend says I should update to 64bit. Can you do that? I thought you either buy 32bit or 64bit from the store and that's it? |
Dunno about updating but yeah i think the max for a 32 Bit OS is only 3GB so uh yeah...
Gameamp Guides [AMP]
~ Playing Guildwars Since 3/19/06 ~ [AMP] Member since November 2007 ~
~ Playing Everquest II Since 7/21/07 ~
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| 07/08/08 14:32 |
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RazoMoto
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| QUOTE | | Oh BTW.. friend says I should update to 64bit. Can you do that? I thought you either buy 32bit or 64bit from the store and that's it? |
Upgrade to 64-Bit? Don't know, think you'd need a whole new operating system for that, but i havent checked out any other OS besides XP which i've been using for, hell, alot of years.
Anyways, you can live with it, as do i, i did manage to tweak my bios and such to get the most out of my 4GB of ram, but even i can't use 4GB on 32-bit, just 3.6GB
You can go with it though, unless you do video editing, its enough.
~Lucky Mac Luckerton~ PH.D In Awesome, M.A. In Madness, B.A. In Relax (with a minor in World Domination)
It's so nice to be insane, no one asks you to explain!
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| 07/08/08 14:34 |
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mwpeck
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It depends on your processor....you either have a 64-bit capable processor or not. Beyond that, you cant simply "update" your current OS to 64-bit, you must buy (or dl if you wish) and install a 64-bit OS, like Windows XP 64-bit, or Vista 64-bit......that of course is assuming you want to keep using Windows-based systems.
| Update in whenever I dont feel lazy. |  |
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| 07/08/08 15:47 |
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DarkNshY
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I have a new comp with xp 32 bit operating system and it shows 3.5GB. XP can only use 4 gig of RAM i think. 3.5 RAM + 512 VRAM = 4 GIGs of RAM.
Anyways XP will use all RAM that shows. Vista = dx 10 nothing else.
Not sure but i think its correct.
duleet @ xfire
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| 07/08/08 16:33 |
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mwpeck
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| QUOTE | I have a new comp with xp 32 bit operating system and it shows 3.5GB. XP can only use 4 gig of RAM i think. 3.5 RAM + 512 VRAM = 4 GIGs of RAM.
Anyways XP will use all RAM that shows. Vista = dx 10 nothing else.
Not sure but i think its correct. |
Close, basically what happens, all your memory-mapped hardware such as graphics cards and bois ROM chips, need to be addressed. A 32-bit OS only has up to 4 GB of address space. Typical mapping takes up around 1 GB, it varies based on hardware configurations. This is why some people will have only 3GB, some will have 3.5GB, etc etc.
So, that ~1GB your losing is because your 32-bit OS can only map 4GB of space, and some of it is required for other hardware before the memory can have the rest. If you want that GB back, get a 64-bit OS (32-bit = 4294967296 bytes, or 4GB) which gives it more address space it can allocate.
Incase your wondering how much of a difference a 64-bit OS makes, 64-bit would be 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bytes or 2 exabytes of physical address space. (progression goes from giga -> tera -> peta -> exa)
Just a note, modern graphics cards are nearing 1GB of ram, that means running 1 of those with a 32-bit OS is going to limit you to 3GB of address space BEFORE other hardware takes what it needs, so in reality, installing 4GB of ram and a graphics card with 1GB of space would leave you between 2-2.5GB of physical ram.
| Update in whenever I dont feel lazy. | |
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| 07/08/08 17:06 |
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lani
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What MWpeck said :-)
Semi-readable Wikipedia entry on 64 Bit OSes and the implications as well as why 32 Bit OSes only go to 3.3-ish GB memory.
On a side note, there's a problem with Vista 32 and more than the "allowed" amount of memory (think BSoDs). Which is why pre-fab PC's with Vista are always shipped with a careful margin capped at 3.0 GB
So if you're putting together your own PC that's yet another reason not to subject it to Vista 32, if you needed one ;-)
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| 07/08/08 17:38 |
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