Vista - How to increase free RAM?

I have windows Vista 32 bit installed, and have put 4 GBs of RAM on my
motherboard. I know that 32 bit OS can not use all 4 GBs for apps, but is
there a way to increase the amount? Right now I only have around 2.7~2.8 GB,
and that is with 4 RAMs installed.

I have 2HDDs, a DVD drive and a Floopy drive. It is possible to increase
available RAM by disabling some unused hardware like the Floopy drive? And is
there also other methods I can use?

On an other note, I also want to make sure I've got the RAMs installed
correctly. I've had times where the comp won't boot when having 4 RAMs, so
now that it does I think I got it in right. And when I use the tool CPU-Z, I
am able to see four submenus under SPD, so I think the OS did detect four
RAMs.

You can only see about 2.7+ gig. The remainder of the RAM is taken up by
the system. I have 4GB on my system so what you are seeing is normal.

Is there something you are running where it is hitting the limit?


"Semaj" <Semaj@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:17DFC84C-E53E-4F3D-8662-845710C9A75A@microsoft.com...
>I have windows Vista 32 bit installed, and have put 4 GBs of RAM on my
> motherboard. I know that 32 bit OS can not use all 4 GBs for apps, but is
> there a way to increase the amount? Right now I only have around 2.7~2.8
> GB,
> and that is with 4 RAMs installed.
>
> I have 2HDDs, a DVD drive and a Floopy drive. It is possible to increase
> available RAM by disabling some unused hardware like the Floopy drive? And
> is
> there also other methods I can use?
>
> On an other note, I also want to make sure I've got the RAMs installed
> correctly. I've had times where the comp won't boot when having 4 RAMs, so
> now that it does I think I got it in right. And when I use the tool CPU-Z,
> I
> am able to see four submenus under SPD, so I think the OS did detect four
> RAMs.

">I have windows Vista 32 bit installed, and have put 4 GBs of RAM on my
> motherboard. I know that 32 bit OS can not use all 4 GBs for apps, but is
> there a way to increase the amount? Right now I only have around 2.7~2.8
> GB,
> and that is with 4 RAMs installed.

To see all 4GB, you would need to run 64-bit Vista, . See this Microsoft
KnowledgeBase article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605

Hope it helps,
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au

Don't worry about Free Ram with Vista. Vista is extremely efficient in
using RAM and will free up more RAM as it becomes needed. With
2 Gig or more it would be a rare program that would need more RAM
than Vista allocates.

"Semaj" <Semaj@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:17DFC84C-E53E-4F3D-8662-845710C9A75A@microsoft.com...
>I have windows Vista 32 bit installed, and have put 4 GBs of RAM on my
> motherboard. I know that 32 bit OS can not use all 4 GBs for apps, but is
> there a way to increase the amount? Right now I only have around 2.7~2.8
> GB,
> and that is with 4 RAMs installed.
>
> I have 2HDDs, a DVD drive and a Floopy drive. It is possible to increase
> available RAM by disabling some unused hardware like the Floopy drive? And
> is
> there also other methods I can use?
>
> On an other note, I also want to make sure I've got the RAMs installed
> correctly. I've had times where the comp won't boot when having 4 RAMs, so
> now that it does I think I got it in right. And when I use the tool CPU-Z,
> I
> am able to see four submenus under SPD, so I think the OS did detect four
> RAMs.

Semaj wrote:
> I have windows Vista 32 bit installed, and have put 4 GBs of RAM on my
> motherboard. I know that 32 bit OS can not use all 4 GBs for apps, but is
> there a way to increase the amount? Right now I only have around 2.7~2.8 GB,
> and that is with 4 RAMs installed.


Why? Free RAM is wasted RAM. It's there to be used; you already seem
to haver more RAM than your system needs.




--

Bruce Chambers

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"Bruce Chambers" wrote:
> Why? Free RAM is wasted RAM. It's there to be used; you already seem
> to haver more RAM than your system needs.

Maybe I worded that wrong, I think I meant available RAM, like what is shown
when you go into the details section of your System properties.

Thanks for the replies, I don't have any problems with the amount of RAM I
have right now since I haven't really done much yet, the comp was just built.
I was just curious since some people on this board are able to get around
3~3.2 GB (with 4 GB installed) on 32 bit OS and I didn't, so I wanted to know
what the issues is.

On Thu, 2 Aug 2007 19:24:00 -0700, Semaj
<Semaj@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>"Bruce Chambers" wrote:
>> Why? Free RAM is wasted RAM. It's there to be used; you already seem
>> to haver more RAM than your system needs.
>
>Maybe I worded that wrong, I think I meant available RAM, like what is shown
>when you go into the details section of your System properties.
>
>Thanks for the replies, I don't have any problems with the amount of RAM I
>have right now since I haven't really done much yet, the comp was just built.
>I was just curious since some people on this board are able to get around
>3~3.2 GB (with 4 GB installed) on 32 bit OS and I didn't, so I wanted to know
>what the issues is.

How much do you get and do you have a video card that uses part of the
system's RAM?

> I was just curious since some people on this board are able to get around
> 3~3.2 GB (with 4 GB installed) on 32 bit OS and I didn't, so I wanted to
> know
> what the issues is.

It depends on the hardware. The reason you can't see the full 4GB is that
hardware devices must reserve some memory ranges for their own use.

For example, if your graphics card has 512 MB of RAM, how can the operating
system address that 512MB? It has to use part of the 32-bit address space.
So there's 512MB of your 4GB which cannot be used for general system
memory. And so on. Depending on the specific devices you have installed, and
what memory ranges they are going to reserve, you will see between 2.7 and
3.2GB of memory. There's not much you can do to change this, apart from
changing your hardware. Or by going to a 64 bit operating system, which can
address more than 4GB of memory space (so not everything has to be crammed
into that 4GB).

To see what memory addresses are being reserved by hardware, go to Computer,
Properties, Device Manager. From the View menu, select Resource by Type. Now
expand the Memory branch of the tree. You will see hardware devices listed,
such as motherboard, PCI bus, graphics card etc, along with the memory
ranges they have reserved.
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au

On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 18:14:00 -0700, Semaj wrote:

> I have windows Vista 32 bit installed, and have put 4 GBs of RAM on my
> motherboard. I know that 32 bit OS can not use all 4 GBs for apps, but is
> there a way to increase the amount? Right now I only have around 2.7~2.8 GB,
> and that is with 4 RAMs installed.

Not quite true. Linux can handle 16-64gb of RAM with a 32 bit kernel.

>
> I have 2HDDs, a DVD drive and a Floopy drive. It is possible to increase
> available RAM by disabling some unused hardware like the Floopy drive? And is
> there also other methods I can use?
>
> On an other note, I also want to make sure I've got the RAMs installed
> correctly. I've had times where the comp won't boot when having 4 RAMs, so
> now that it does I think I got it in right. And when I use the tool CPU-Z, I
> am able to see four submenus under SPD, so I think the OS did detect four
> RAMs.

>> I have windows Vista 32 bit installed, and have put 4 GBs of RAM on my
>> motherboard. I know that 32 bit OS can not use all 4 GBs for apps, but is
>> there a way to increase the amount? Right now I only have around 2.7~2.8
>> GB,
>> and that is with 4 RAMs installed.
>
> Not quite true. Linux can handle 16-64gb of RAM with a 32 bit kernel.

By default, most 32-bit Linux kernels address 4GB of memory. You can
configure the kernel to use Intel PAE (Page Address Extensions) to get 36
bit addresses; and hence access up to 64GB of memory. However it's not a
free gift. Executing code can't see any of the memory above 4GB, even if the
OS can address it. So application code must live below 4GB. Also, to be
directly addresses by code, data needs to be moved from the High Zone back
down into the Normal zone, with a kmap() or similar call. The memory above
4GB is mainly useful as cache, for example if you have a database
application.

For the sake of completeness, it's worth noting that Windows Server 2003 has
the same facility, by booting with with the "/PAE" switch; and by using AWE
memory APIs in your Windows applications (eg the 32 bit SQL Server). The
limitations of 36-bit addressing on Windows are similar to those on Linux.
The 32-bit Windows Server 2003 Enterprise edition can address 32 GB of
memory (via PAE). In SP1 this was increased to 64GB. Windows automatically
enables PAE on CPUs with the DEP feature.

Since nearly all new CPUs are 64-bit anyway, all this memory jiggery-pokery
is fortunately going away ...
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au