physical memory

Hello out there

I just got my attention on that Windows 2000 and also windows 2003 server incorrectly reports how much physical memory there is installed in the server - f.ex. this small script:
strComputer = ". "

Set objSWbemServices = GetObject( "winmgmts:\\" & strComputer)
Set colSWbemObjectSet = _
objSWbemServices.InstancesOf( "Win32_LogicalMemoryConfiguration ")

For Each objSWbemObject In colSWbemObjectSet
Wscript.Echo "Total Physical Memory (kb): " & _
objSWbemObject.TotalPhysicalMemory
Next

report 3.2GB mem in a Dell 2800 server with 4GB RAM - I have run this script on several different hw-platforms with similary result. Anyone got an idea why?

regards /ti

 

Looking at MS'es website you shouldn't be using that class. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...isdk/wmi/win32_logicalmemoryconfiguration.asp. This may (or may not) make a difference...

 

thanks - but - as far as I can see there isn't any useable alternative classes there to use instead - but anyway - my problem is not as much as that this script gives me the wrong value but more (taskmanager and other tools show me the same - wrong - value) - are these memory pages which probably are "hidden" behind the PCI bus used by the OS or not? If we dig a bit more in this availably physical memory I'll be quite surprised it not many of you will discover the same on servers with 2GB or more RAM installed.
Just a extra note: we have just tried to boot one of the servers - with no more than 4GB physical memory installed - with the /PAE switch on (according for some tip from Dell Support) - and certainly - now is all the installed memory recoigniced by the OS. I just wonder - this switch changes the way the OS translate the logical adresses - with PAE enabled, the operating system moves from a two-level linear address translation to a three-level address translation. The extra layer of translation is what provides access to physical memory beyond 4 GB. Instead of a linear address being split into three separate fields for indexing into memory tables, it is split into four separate fields; a 2-bit field, two 9-bit fields, and a 12-bit field that corresponds to the page size implemented by Intel Architecture (4 KB).
But - my mem is all belove the 4GB limit - do we have some bug somewhere here if servers do not have PAE enabled ? Are these pages behind the PCI bus lost for the OS if we do not have PAE enabled?

regards /ti