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2 or More GB of Ram for Memory

12 Responses (Add) | Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 7:00pm


Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – Every day it seems I get a ton of questions about RAM. I chose this one to answer, because this user is a bit confused. He has a 32-bit Windows setup, and can’t figure out why Windows won’t recognize more than 2GB of RAM when he installs it.

Elementary, my dear Watson. A 32-bit system can not use more than 2GB of RAM. If your system supports it, you’ll need to upgrade to a 64-bit version of Windows in order to install more RAM. If you’re adding RAM, make sure you know what brand you already have. Certain brands do not play nicely together. Of course, if you’re buying all new RAM and totally replacing what you have, that issue doesn’t really exist. I’m not going to go into depth about one type vs another… we’ll leave that for another video. Keep in mind that saving money isn’t always the route to go. In my opinion, you get what you pay for with hardware of any type. No, I’m not telling you to spend a fortune you cannot afford. Just… buy the best in your price range.

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12 Comments

sjc1963

August 29th, 2007
at 3:10am

A 32bit OS supports up to 4 Gigs of RAM, not just 2. A 64bit OS could address a theoretical 128 Terabytes of RAM.

sjc1963

August 29th, 2007
at 3:10am

A 32bit OS supports up to 4 Gigs of RAM, not just 2. A 64bit OS could address a theoretical 128 Terabytes of RAM.

woolf2k

August 29th, 2007
at 6:54am

yep, 4GB. however, alot of the hardware used by the system requires memory addressable space… hence you hit the 2.7G – 3GB barrior for actual memory because the rest is used by devices (like pci cards, bios, etc).

however, 32bit windows OS applications are limited to a 2GB workspace…some limit introduced by the OS.

and to make things more confusing the cpu itself actually has a 36bit addressable space… so it can actually address more than 4GB … but for some reason the last 4bits aren’t supported , I’ve yet to get a good answer for this. Perhaps it was an after-thought for the server market. /shrug

woolf2k

August 29th, 2007
at 6:54am

yep, 4GB. however, alot of the hardware used by the system requires memory addressable space… hence you hit the 2.7G – 3GB barrior for actual memory because the rest is used by devices (like pci cards, bios, etc).

however, 32bit windows OS applications are limited to a 2GB workspace…some limit introduced by the OS.

and to make things more confusing the cpu itself actually has a 36bit addressable space… so it can actually address more than 4GB … but for some reason the last 4bits aren’t supported , I’ve yet to get a good answer for this. Perhaps it was an after-thought for the server market. /shrug

sjc1963

August 29th, 2007
at 1:42pm

BTW, the 128 Terabytes of a 64bit OS is a little over twice the total storage capacity of the human brain… :-)

sjc1963

August 29th, 2007
at 1:42pm

BTW, the 128 Terabytes of a 64bit OS is a little over twice the total storage capacity of the human brain… :-)

huggs

August 29th, 2007
at 6:03pm

Chris is sort of correct on this – 32 bit Windows by default can only use 2GB of RAM for user processes. The other 2GB of it’s total addressable space of 4GB is dedicated to system processes. There is a simple INIT switch (/3gb) that will allow you to shift this up to 3GB for users and 1GB for system. Your video RAM also eats into this 4GB total……. )c8

huggs

August 29th, 2007
at 6:03pm

Chris is sort of correct on this – 32 bit Windows by default can only use 2GB of RAM for user processes. The other 2GB of it’s total addressable space of 4GB is dedicated to system processes. There is a simple INIT switch (/3gb) that will allow you to shift this up to 3GB for users and 1GB for system. Your video RAM also eats into this 4GB total……. )c8

John Howard Oxley

August 30th, 2007
at 8:04am

To paraphrase Bill Gates: “Why would anyone want more than 2GB of user process memory?” — in one word: memoryleaks. I have an always-on system running XP, a bevy of background security utilities [of which SUNBELT SOFTWARE's CounterSpy takes up a whopping 425MB], EUDORA open with 13,000+ e-mails in the inbox, FIREFOX open, and WORD and EXCEL — that’s it.

This ensemble starts out around 800MB of memory — doing nothing, and simply sitting there for a week, it creeps up to 1.07GB — which means with leaks at that rate, a reboot will be required every 5 weeks or so. The less rebooting the better in my opinion — so that is another reason why hardware companies should be emphasizing 64-bit driver development — which is what is holding up 64-bitness, as I understand it.

fornetti

August 31st, 2008
at 2:03am

I do not believe this

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