I have a brand new pc with Vista Pro and 4Gb of RAM DDR800 on board. BIOS
correctly recognizes the right amount of memory but Windows don't. It reports
only 3,5 RAM. Am I missing something or it's a O.S. limit?
Thanks in advance.



Michelangelo Togni

It IS a limit of any 32-bit OS.

--
I Bleed Blue and Gold
GO BEARS!


"mtogni" <mtogni@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:2CFCDE08-9F4E-4A78-A393-7DCAE85A09CD@microsoft.com...
>I have a brand new pc with Vista Pro and 4Gb of RAM DDR800 on board. BIOS
> correctly recognizes the right amount of memory but Windows don't. It reports
> only 3,5 RAM. Am I missing something or it's a O.S. limit?
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Michelangelo Togni

It is a 32 Bit limit, regardless of the OS. If you have a 64 bit processor,
you can install the 64 bit version of Vista and it will "see" all of the
RAM.

The 4 GB is there, but due to the 32 bit memory addressing limit, the OS
only see's ~3-3.5 GB. The other addressing space is for the video card, BIOS
and other hardware.

--
Dustin Harper
dharper@vistarip.com
http://www.vistarip.com

--
"mtogni" <mtogni@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:2CFCDE08-9F4E-4A78-A393-7DCAE85A09CD@microsoft.com...
>I have a brand new pc with Vista Pro and 4Gb of RAM DDR800 on board. BIOS
> correctly recognizes the right amount of memory but Windows don't. It
> reports
> only 3,5 RAM. Am I missing something or it's a O.S. limit?
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Michelangelo Togni

mtogni,

Her is a Microsoft article explaining it fully:

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

The main point to notice is the remapping feature required in BIOS.
--
freddy


"mtogni" wrote:

> I have a brand new pc with Vista Pro and 4Gb of RAM DDR800 on board. BIOS
> correctly recognizes the right amount of memory but Windows don't. It reports
> only 3,5 RAM. Am I missing something or it's a O.S. limit?
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Michelangelo Togni

So the remaining 0.5 Gb is not lost but is used by the system? If so I think
this is not so bad, however "something" use it...
--
Michelangelo Togni


"Dustin Harper" wrote:

> It is a 32 Bit limit, regardless of the OS. If you have a 64 bit processor,
> you can install the 64 bit version of Vista and it will "see" all of the
> RAM.
>
> The 4 GB is there, but due to the 32 bit memory addressing limit, the OS
> only see's ~3-3.5 GB. The other addressing space is for the video card, BIOS
> and other hardware.
>
> --
> Dustin Harper
> dharper@vistarip.com
> http://www.vistarip.com
>
> --
> "mtogni" <mtogni@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:2CFCDE08-9F4E-4A78-A393-7DCAE85A09CD@microsoft.com...
> >I have a brand new pc with Vista Pro and 4Gb of RAM DDR800 on board. BIOS
> > correctly recognizes the right amount of memory but Windows don't. It
> > reports
> > only 3,5 RAM. Am I missing something or it's a O.S. limit?
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Michelangelo Togni
>

AFAIK it is not actually used by the system. The addresses are reserved for
use by other cards such as a graphics card with 512 MB of on board memory to
addressee their own memory so the OS itself can not use the space.
"Mt_thecap" <Mtthecap@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7A1F7CB7-F3E1-430A-81BB-DDF50637BFAD@microsoft.com...
> So the remaining 0.5 Gb is not lost but is used by the system? If so I
> think
> this is not so bad, however "something" use it...
> --
> Michelangelo Togni
>
>
> "Dustin Harper" wrote:
>
>> It is a 32 Bit limit, regardless of the OS. If you have a 64 bit
>> processor,
>> you can install the 64 bit version of Vista and it will "see" all of the
>> RAM.
>>
>> The 4 GB is there, but due to the 32 bit memory addressing limit, the OS
>> only see's ~3-3.5 GB. The other addressing space is for the video card,
>> BIOS
>> and other hardware.
>>
>> --
>> Dustin Harper
>> dharper@vistarip.com
>> http://www.vistarip.com
>>
>> --
>> "mtogni" <mtogni@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:2CFCDE08-9F4E-4A78-A393-7DCAE85A09CD@microsoft.com...
>> >I have a brand new pc with Vista Pro and 4Gb of RAM DDR800 on board.
>> >BIOS
>> > correctly recognizes the right amount of memory but Windows don't. It
>> > reports
>> > only 3,5 RAM. Am I missing something or it's a O.S. limit?
>> > Thanks in advance.
>> >
>> > Michelangelo Togni
>>

Cal,

3.5 GB is the limit of 32-bit OS. My computer claims to take 4 GB RAM so it
is not much useful to add up to the max. as I have 2 GB RAM on my computer.
Other parts of computer will use the RAM over 3.5 GB. Is it really true on
every Vista computer or subject to certain conditions as my video card is
independent one, not share the system RAM?

Thanks,

Scott

"Cal Bear '66" <xxx@xxx.org> ¦b¶l¥ó
news:2B45189F-BB03-4157-9C20-81C11A155FC4@microsoft.com ¤¤¼¶¼g...
> It IS a limit of any 32-bit OS.
>
> --
> I Bleed Blue and Gold
> GO BEARS!
>
>
> "mtogni" <mtogni@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:2CFCDE08-9F4E-4A78-A393-7DCAE85A09CD@microsoft.com...
>>I have a brand new pc with Vista Pro and 4Gb of RAM DDR800 on board. BIOS
>> correctly recognizes the right amount of memory but Windows don't. It
>> reports
>> only 3,5 RAM. Am I missing something or it's a O.S. limit?
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Michelangelo Togni
>
>

It isn't the physical RAM that is the problem. It is the addressing system.
Basically, the system maps everything it needs to a (hate to use the word,
as it's not really accurate) virtual memory place, or address space. This
place can only be 4 GB in size. This includes the RAM, video card, BIOS, and
other hardware that maps itself there. If you have an independant video
card, that will reduce it by the amount of RAM the card has.

Imagine a map of a factory 4 acres in size. You have 4 acres of product
(RAM), but the shelves, equipment and boxes (video card, BIOS, etc.). The
factory can support 4 acres of total space, but only a certain amount is
available for certain things. There is going to be some overhead.

--
Dustin Harper
dharper@vistarip.com
http://www.vistarip.com

--
"Scott" <NoSpam-Scott.Xe@GMail.com> wrote in message
news:ea07inksHHA.4600@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Cal,
>
> 3.5 GB is the limit of 32-bit OS. My computer claims to take 4 GB RAM so
> it is not much useful to add up to the max. as I have 2 GB RAM on my
> computer. Other parts of computer will use the RAM over 3.5 GB. Is it
> really true on every Vista computer or subject to certain conditions as my
> video card is independent one, not share the system RAM?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Scott
>
> "Cal Bear '66" <xxx@xxx.org> ¦b¶l¥ó
> news:2B45189F-BB03-4157-9C20-81C11A155FC4@microsoft.com ¤¤¼¶¼g...
>> It IS a limit of any 32-bit OS.
>>
>> --
>> I Bleed Blue and Gold
>> GO BEARS!
>>
>>
>> "mtogni" <mtogni@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:2CFCDE08-9F4E-4A78-A393-7DCAE85A09CD@microsoft.com...
>>>I have a brand new pc with Vista Pro and 4Gb of RAM DDR800 on board. BIOS
>>> correctly recognizes the right amount of memory but Windows don't. It
>>> reports
>>> only 3,5 RAM. Am I missing something or it's a O.S. limit?
>>> Thanks in advance.
>>>
>>> Michelangelo Togni
>>
>>
>

32 bit os can find only 3~3.5Gb Ram ,WHY?
32 bit should find 4G max.

"Dustin Harper" wrote:

> It is a 32 Bit limit, regardless of the OS. If you have a 64 bit processor,
> you can install the 64 bit version of Vista and it will "see" all of the
> RAM.
>
> The 4 GB is there, but due to the 32 bit memory addressing limit, the OS
> only see's ~3-3.5 GB. The other addressing space is for the video card, BIOS
> and other hardware.
>
> --
> Dustin Harper
> dharper@vistarip.com
> http://www.vistarip.com
>
> --
> "mtogni" <mtogni@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:2CFCDE08-9F4E-4A78-A393-7DCAE85A09CD@microsoft.com...
> >I have a brand new pc with Vista Pro and 4Gb of RAM DDR800 on board. BIOS
> > correctly recognizes the right amount of memory but Windows don't. It
> > reports
> > only 3,5 RAM. Am I missing something or it's a O.S. limit?
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Michelangelo Togni
>

hey it could be worse they could max it only to 2gb of ram lol so be at least
happy. I would

"freddy" wrote:

> mtogni,
>
> Her is a Microsoft article explaining it fully:
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/
>
> The main point to notice is the remapping feature required in BIOS.
> --
> freddy
>
>
> "mtogni" wrote:
>
> > I have a brand new pc with Vista Pro and 4Gb of RAM DDR800 on board. BIOS
> > correctly recognizes the right amount of memory but Windows don't. It reports
> > only 3,5 RAM. Am I missing something or it's a O.S. limit?
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Michelangelo Togni