Where Has My Memory Gone?

[albert]

Hello.

Today i've just upgraded my memory to 4Gig Corsair Xtreme DDR2. It installed fine and runs great!

However, i'm a bit confused. Vista tells me i have 4Gig of RAM installed ..

However when i ran 3DMark Vantage it tells me i have only 3328MB of RAM installed.

Does anyone know where my missing RAM is? I have run another Spec Test through System Mechanic and it also says i have only 3328MB of RAM.

Sorry for sounding daft or if this question has been posted before.

Albert

 

[CliffyBiro]

Can't remember...

 

[CliffyBiro]

32 bit operating systems can only see/use up to 3.5gb

 

[albert]

I have a 1Gig HD4870 so will this maybe have something to do with the 'Missing' Ram?

 

[RJC]

Yep, you need 64bit operating system to make full use of your RAM.

 

[Tom|Nbk]

Yup as said that is the limitation of the operating system. Get Vista 64

 

[Mr-White]

hahaha i knew the answer as soon as i saw the thread title lol

MW

 

[Tom|Nbk]

Driver support for Vista 64 is also pretty much the same as 32bit if you're using modern up to date hardware

Which by the sounds of it you are

 

[CurlyWhirly]

Does anyone know where my missing RAM is? I have run another Spec Test through System Mechanic and it also says i have only 3328MB of RAM.

I think it's due to the limitation of a 32-bit O/S mind you having a 64-bit O/S doesn't make any difference if the chipset can't address more than 4 GB of RAM like mine

Vista can only see just over 2.5 GB of RAM in Windows Task Manager:

... although a GB of system memory is being shared with my graphics card so it isn't really lost (I lose just under 500 MB in total as this is used by the memory-mapped I/O (MMIO) as explained in my link (above)

p.s. I was also wondering about this and asked a few weeks ago and now know why Vista can't utilise the full 4 GB so it isn't a daft question