Z170 and 32bit Windows - How Much Reserved?

This is a simple question for anyone running a Z170 and 32bit Windows.

How much memory is hardware reserved?

I appreciate 512-768MB can be reserved - it has always been like that for 15 years with all architecture.

But what about Z170s? Are you running 32bit? How much reserved now?

I appreciate too that there must be very few people out there running 32bit because if you have splashed out on a Z170 and Skylake, you have quite likely splashed out on 8GB or 16GB and thus use 64bit. So if you are running 64bit do you fancy running a test install of 32bit?

Frank_Rizzo said:

So if you are running 64bit do you fancy running a test install of 32bit?

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That's not very likely, is it?

64bit has been mainstream for the best part of 10 years now and even the cheapest, nastiest desktops/laptops with 1/2GB ram have been coming with 64bit windows since the Vista days. There simply is no reason at all for anyone to be running 32bit unless their hardware isn't 64bit capable. That's Athlon XP/P4 era junk. Maybe you can add early Atom too.

edit: to answer your question, why not just assume the worst and know you'll have 3.25GB usable ram.

Why would it not be likely? Maybe someone has a spare disk they could test, or are adept with clone images and have a spare 15 minutes?

Yep. Know alll about 64bit. And there are very good reasons for some to carry on using 32bit. Don't assume we are all gamers.

And to answer your question: I am trying to find out if there is a specific issue with Z170 and 32bit. There is with the Z170XP-SLI. I just need to know if other Gigabytes and / or other manufacturers have the same problem.

Frank_Rizzo said:

Don't assume we are all gamers.

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I didn't. I already told you about the rubbish pedalled on the roundabouts of all our towns and cities for the last 10 years.

I am trying to find out if there is a specific issue with Z170 and 32bit. There is with the Z170XP-SLI.

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Well you didn't mention this before and there shouldn't be. Given that both 32/64bit windows are supported, Microsoft will not digitally sign drivers if manufacturers don't provide 32 and 64bit versions. This was originally done to force hardware manufacturers to get onboard with 64bit but now it's working the other way around - in your favour.

Points noted.

But can anyone actually help here? To test to see what their Z170 reserves with 32bit Windows 7/8 (marc, no lecture please on Windows 7 )

Do you want a lecture on virtual machines instead?

I could be wrong but wouldn't you have to also enable legacy bios
old win drivers etc, so hardly a 15 min job

'And there are very good reasons for some to carry on using 32bit. ' like not buying newer 64bit software?

There is a bit of a faff with Win7 if using a USB install because you may run into a driver problem (even if using a 2.0 port)

Tip for anyone who may be doing that (for 64 or 32 install). Download and run Intel's fix for this: Win7_USB3.0_Creator_v2. Even though it's a fix for USB3 you may need it for USB2 ports too.

Good shout. I completely forgot that windows 7 didn't have native USB3 support. Obviously that applies to both 32/64bit which is why I didn't think of it in the context of this thread.

lude1962 said:

'And there are very good reasons for some to carry on using 32bit. ' like not buying newer 64bit software?

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The main reason for windows 64bit going mainstream so quickly with Vista was that it maintained support for legacy apps. As an extreme example, you can run Office95 on windows 10 so that argument doesn't really fly.

The exceptions to this are obviously drivers/software that requires low level windows access. Also, the more unscrupulous developers will code their software to check the version of windows and refuse to install on later versions even though there is no technical reason for it do so.

I have a laptop that has 4 gb of ram on windows 7 pro 32 bit, upgraded it to windows 10 pro 32 bit and only had 3 gb use able, really felt sluggish so I took a chance to see if I could clean install 64bit instead, to see if it would activate and sure enough it activated no problems....

The only advantage of a 32 bit os is that most browsers are still 32 bit native so run a tad bit better (allegedly), truth is though, they will naturally run better where more ram is available.

Frank_Rizzo said:

There is a bit of a faff with Win7 if using a USB install because you may run into a driver problem (even if using a 2.0 port)

Tip for anyone who may be doing that (for 64 or 32 install). Download and run Intel's fix for this: Win7_USB3.0_Creator_v2. Even though it's a fix for USB3 you may need it for USB2 ports too.

Click to expand...

I personally never had any problems using rufus to create a bootable usb

I guess the simplistic question was too simplistic! Let me give more detail on why this is important.

Users and 32bits
I run some apps that require 32bit windows. I could port them over to 64bit but it would require un-necessary work because the roadmap for the development is to go all Linux.

One reason for this is because from next year Microsoft are going to start dropping support for Skylakes on Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. They will only produce the most important security updates for those products and the intention here is to "get 1 billion users of Windows 10". Note too that future processors (Kaby Lake) will only have support for Windows 10. If you think faffing around with installing windows 7/8 on a Skylake rig is a bit of a bind now wait until you try it on Kaby Lake - it may not be possible at all.

One other point on 32bits. There are probably thousands of users that do require 32bits but you will never know about. Medical research, finance, meteorological, all kinds of research are probably still using it.

Why? Because it is faster for their setups. I totally appreciate you can have more memory, things move in 64 bits instead of 32 and that games could be faster. But remember there are thousands out there that have 32bit running faster than 64bit and they won't shift.

Motherboard Manufacturers and 32bits
If no one is using 32bits on Z170 then why do manufacturers offer drivers for 32bits?

I go on the Gigabyte site

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5496#dl

I click Support and Downloads, choose Drivers, I am then offered a selection of:

* Windows 7 32bit
* Windows 7 64bit
* Windows 8 32bit
* Windows 8 64bit
* Windows 10 32bit
* Windows 10 64bit

If Z170 'is not compatible with 32bits' then why are they offering drivers for it?

The Issue
I have a Z170-XP-SLI. No matter how I configure this (4GB, 8GB, 16GB), Windows 7, 8, 8.1 (32bit) the O/S is reserving 1.9GB.

Now don't jump in there saying "errr 32bit windows only allows 3.25GB - 3.5GB free). I know that. I have known that since the 90s. Everyone knows that.

The issue is that this motherboard is reserving 1.9GB rather than 0.5GB - 0.75GB, which every other rig I have ever had since the start of the millennium.

Let me just repeat. This is not the usual Hardware Reserved of around half a gig, but The Z170 is forcing windows to reserve half a gig + another 1.25GB for some reason.

Resolve It
I can't. I have tried everything and I mean everything. There is nothing else left to try.

This is why I need to find out if this extra 1.25GB of missing RAM is happening to other manufacturers or other Gigabyte boards.

I want to log a ticket with Gigabyte but to prevent them from batting it back I need evidence that this either happens with other boards (that have a specific condition) or if it ony happens with Gigabyte, or if it only happens with the XP-SLI.

My assumption is that this is a simple BIOS setting. I am going on the angle that something like the > 4GB switch is missing from the XP-SLI BIOS and that Gigabyte need to add it.

Or it could be that this board is faulty and needs RMA'ing.

But I can not prove any of this unless I get some test data from other boards

Give us a little more info in order to help you out, are you using a dedicated graphics card or the on processor Intel?

What is your legacy app and are you not able to run it under a virtual machine?

If you think faffing around with installing windows 7/8 on a Skylake rig is a bit of a bind now wait until you try it on Kaby Lake - it may not be possible at all.

Click to expand...

Most here will be well aware of that and hence will be using Windows 10.

I can assure you every avenue has been checked.

It doesn't matter if onboard or dedicated GFX is used, if you turn on onboard in the bios or disable it. 1.25GB is going somewhere.

Rather than starting again from scratch you can read about the issue here:

http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=16887.0

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It's all custom database stuff. Sure VM could be used but this is not practical and causes a performance hit.

I would really like to find out WHY this board is eating up 1.25GB rather than discuss that pros and cons of certain software. It either means I RMA it, or try and get Gigabyte to rectify a design fault.

I guess no one can help out here. Guess I just have to order an MSI and an ASUS myself and try it.

Frank_Rizzo said:

The Issue
I have a Z170-XP-SLI. No matter how I configure this (4GB, 8GB, 16GB), Windows 7, 8, 8.1 (32bit) the O/S is reserving 1.9GB.

Now don't jump in there saying "errr 32bit windows only allows 3.25GB - 3.5GB free). I know that. I have known that since the 90s. Everyone knows that.

The issue is that this motherboard is reserving 1.9GB rather than 0.5GB - 0.75GB, which every other rig I have ever had since the start of the millennium.

Click to expand...

If you had been forthcoming with this information in your first post, I would have been a lot more sympathetic.

Something is clearly wrong and you don't need confirmation from anyone else to tell you that. I'd be trying to contact the retailer and/or gigabyte support directly.

Yes I will be contacting gigabyte. But as I said they will just bat this back quoting their disclaimer

"* Due to a Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than the size of the physical memory installed."

For that very reason I need evidence that this either does or does not happen with other manufacturers. Once I have that evidence I can present it to them and hopefully they will provide speedy resolution.

The only reason there was a 32 bit release of windows 10 was solely to give those on 32 bit os like windows 7 and 8 the same "opportunity" to upgrade to Windows 10 also. Had they not done so they would have had huge consumer complaints on their hands.

Sure 32 bit os may have some niche uses still but overall it's crippling, I mean it is not just max ram that is crippled but you have to keep in mind that it also effects things like max vram ..
With 4gb+ vram on video cards being common place these days it's logical that 32 bit os should be phased out.The memory limit is not just for ram but vram counts too


Now to address the ram reserved you talk about, The intel Iris igp has a minimum of 128MB of RAM memory available and a maximum of 1.7GB reserved as far as I know, could this possibly be it? Perhaps try disabling the igp and run a dedicated card to test, just it's the first thing that comes to mind.

Memory reserved would be down to the os not hardware, run a copy of linux from a live cd/usb and check the memory again.This would be my first steps.

Yes there is a dedicated card in there. IGP was disabled, and every other combination of on, and footprint tested. If you read the Gigabyte link above you will see what is done.

As for memory reserved would be down to the OS not the hardware: sort of agreed. Because 64bit Windows8.1 and Ubuntu (64bit) all see the full amount of RAM on this rigt. However the very same copy of Windows 8.1 on a 4770K rig does not have this problem which points to hardware!

The issue is very likely to be with the Gigabyte BIOS. I am pretty sure it is a setting other boards have, which this board does not. Something like the > 4GB switch.

If only someone could test this else I have to purchase and re-sell new motherboards which is wasteful!

It's a simple test.

1. Get a spare hard disk
2. Boot your install DVD or USB
3. Install Windows 7/8/8.1 32bit onto the disk

You DONT need to have the network cable in and you don't have to run updates. All you need to do is to go straight into Control Panel->System on first boot and check the Installed memory (RAM): setting and see how much is hardware reserved.

It really does take 15mins. I did all three O/Ss in under an hour.

Now I expect this conversation to continue on the lines of "how can you expect someone to find a spare disk.", "why don't you just give up and use 64bit." That's what is slightly annoying about this place.

Most answers seem to be to conflict with OPs, rather than assist them. It's like someone asks "What's the best way to cook sirloin steak on a charcoal barbecue". There would be no reply on the lines of "I use a salt rub and turn it every 30 seconds", but replies of "meat is bad - you should use veggie bean", "charcoal is rubbish, gas is better" etc. etc. Most unhelpful and just detracts from OPs questions.

So can anyone help here or not? Can any one run a test on a Z170 and state the figure?

I read through that other forum and honestly I have never seen something like that before, it's bizarre.

This is now resolved.

Top marks to Gigabyte for understanding the problem and providing a fix very quickly.

There is a BIOS update that fixes this hardware memory reserved problem with 32bit windows.

QED.