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32 bit Vista, 4 gigs of RAM
Wavechaser
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I recently upgraded my system from 2 gigs, to 4 of 3200 DDR RAM (two dual-sticks). After hastling to find two different manufacturers of RAM to play nice together, I finally got my system to see all 4 gigs.
After doing this, I decided to do a system check, where it rates your systems components and gives it a score.
Almost every category was sitting at 5.9. Graphics Card, Processor, etc etc.
My Memory (RAM) shows 4.3
What the hell is that about? How is it possible with 4 gigs of RAM and the bare necessities running in the background, that my memory is still hurting?
After doing this, I decided to do a system check, where it rates your systems components and gives it a score.
Almost every category was sitting at 5.9. Graphics Card, Processor, etc etc.
My Memory (RAM) shows 4.3
What the hell is that about? How is it possible with 4 gigs of RAM and the bare necessities running in the background, that my memory is still hurting?
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Massively incorrect. Any value brand of ddr800 or higher ram is fine for the topest of top end computing. More is always better, especially with Vista.
That said, don't just the Vista index of lies as any indication of system performance. Real benchmarking programs like Sandra and just regular tasks should be an indication of whether or not you're satisfied. As long as the actual sticks of ram are okay and there's enough power in the system I wouldn't worry about it.
Also, i'll have to check out Sandra, I'm assuming that's a downloadable application I can use for benchmarking?
You should definitely check out your PSU and make sure the rails and overall wattage is enough for your rig. Find out what it is!
Of course, you'll see in the first line of the OP that the poster has upgraded to four sticks of DDR PC3200, or DDR 400. Your problem is not that you don't have enough RAM, the problem is that it about half as fast as what is recommended for Vista. (DDR2 800)
Unfortunately, getting into 240-pin DDR2 means a mobo upgrade. Basically, you are not getting DDR RAM to push 6.0 ratings no matter what you do. Sorry.
Two other things confuse me: 32-bit Vista generally won't recognize more than 3.5gigs of RAM, and less if you have a big vid card. What did you do to get it to recognize all four gigs? Or were you saying you finally got it to work with all four gigs in there and you assumed it was recognizing all of it?
The second thing is that I worry your voltages may be stressing one set of RAM more than the other. You should really double check to see what the acceptable ranges of each of the DIMMs are and make sure you are within them. You don't want to burn out one of the sticks (or worse, the mobo) just to get four gigs. A fifth of a volt can mean the difference between dead, functioning, and on fire with RAM. (this is why I don't think power is an issue... you'd be experiencing video issues first if you were short on power, and you wouldn't be getting a boot if your RAM was underpowered)
32-bit vista was changed in SP1 to display all 4 gigs of memory, but it'll still only address ~3.3-~3.5 gigs of it.
Thats a limitation of any 32-bit OS.
It's obviously the limitation of Vista's DRM that restricts the OS to less than four gigs because the rest is being used to monitor your activity and send it back through WGA.
You can tell someone's right by their use of clever dollar signs in acronyms.
I'm guessing for SP1 microsoft decided that they'd get less complaints of "My computer shows 4gb of ram but can only use 3.3ghz of it." than they got for "Why is my computer only showing 3.3 gigs of RAM? I put 4 in there...".
It's like, oh yeah, you have 4 gigs, but it's only 128 pin DDR olol sorry that sucks! There's DDR, SDRAM, DDR2 fucking hell, when did this stuff get so convoluted?
It's almost like building your own system isn't even worth it anymore. They are constantly coming out with new formats for things like RAM, and PCI-Express, and oh what's that? None of it works with your current motherboard! OH DARN GUESS YOU HAVE TO BUY ALL NEW SHIT.
/end rant
If you read that right, you'll see that a 32-bit architecture should be able to address 2^32 bits of RAM, which actually comes out to 4.29 gigabytes. That article used to be more specific, I don't know why it was simplified to just "4GB." Obviously, there's a disconnect here when people with 32-bit OSs can't address the full 4.29GB. Where does this come from? Overhead, waste, poor coding, and yes, video memory. I've still seen people with older cards getting less than 3.5.
Microsoft, instead of endeavoring to eliminate that waste, has simply started lying to its customers in order to make their 32-bit OS more attractive. Is that fair? May I continue making snide comments about their business practices now?
Units of memory always convert by bases of 2. So, you don't divide by 1000, you divide by 1024.
2^32 bits = 4194304 kb * 1024 = 4096 MB * 1024 * 1024 = 4 GB * 1024 * 1024 * 1024.
There's no "waste". The system must reserve memory addresses for your video card, cache, and on-mobo/device memory before it can give addresses to your RAM.
Yeah, I was just ranting for a bit. A year ago I was like "Nice, $600.00 upgrading my machine and it's back to being nice and fast and I'm set for at least a few years", and here I am a year later, looking at another $600 investment in order to keep it up to date. I know it's just a fact of life when it comes to computers, sometimes though it just seems like the life expectancy of these things gets shorter and shorter each time, yet the price remains about the same in order to keep it somewhat fresh. Also, a lot of my frustration is coming from a lack of knowledge on my part. When I decided to make the investment for Vista, I didn't do enough research to compare it with the 64 bit version, which I should have gotten from square one.
I used to be into IT and keeping up with this stuff was easy, I dealt with computers every day and was always onto the newest latest and greatest technology. These last couple years though i'm in a completely different field of work and I just feel like this stuff is flying by me. First it was PCI to PCI Express, then DDR to DDR2, from regular AMD/Intel Processors to Dual and Quad Core. It's overwhelming after not following things for awhile, to all of the sudden want to upgrade and be like "Woah, what the hell?".
After building my first computer in 1998, i'll never ever go back to ever buying a pre-built PC, I get a lot of enjoyment out of putting these entire intricate systems together from parts, it really is a great feeling. I guess what it comes down to is just spending more time researching this stuff and keeping up with all of it. Anyways I digress, but you will probably be seeing me a lot more around these forums.
"Lie"? Them's fighting words. You make it sound like MS is out to defraud users, when they've done the exact opposite. That is, Vista is telling you exactly how much physically addressable memory is available for the operating system to use. Vista would be lying if it told you it could use all 4GB of RAM! And the overhead does vary, as different hardware (like video cards) don't always take up the same exact amount of memory to do their jobs.
Vista pre-SP1: showed the amount of RAM that was available for it to address.
Vista post-SP1: shows the total amount of RAM installed in the system.
Both are accurate numbers, they just represent different things.
The link that CmdPrompt presented is a GREAT explanation of exactly what's happening.