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installed 4gb of ram but desktop shows 3.49gb

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by mikeapple, 2008/11/03.

  1. 2008/11/06
    wildfire

    wildfire Getting Old

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    Talking purely Windows XP 32-bit systems here...

    Which switch /3GB or /PAE?

    for /3GB there is no significant advantage with 4GB systems

    for /PAE some hardware drivers may break but other hardware drivers may be more stable.

    Either way neither will cross the 4GB address space that XP 32-bit has.
     
  2. 2008/11/07
    Chiles4

    Chiles4 Inactive

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    Ah, there's the source of my confusion - I thought the two switches were one and the same. Thanks.

    To the OP, when using 4GB in an XP system, not all 4GB will be recognized or used. That's just the way it is and always will be. Don't be concerned that your bios tells you that you have 4GB. You have it, sure, you just can't use it all under Windows XP.
     

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  4. 2008/11/08
    wildfire

    wildfire Getting Old

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    It's been an interesting discussion, but hopefully I'll clear up a few things here...

    The /3GB switch is like the old DOS (5+) driver LOADHIGH= in CONFIG.SYS

    In effect, the OS only has 4GB address space so by using /3gb you are asking XP to only use that higher 1GB for hardware ROM's and other required address space.

    /PAE on the otherhand (for other OS's) can extend that address space (but not for XP). The only advantage for XP systems is to turn on DEP (Data Execution Prevention), DEP can break older drivers but newer drivers are more stable.

    I may be wrong but that's my understanding, if anyone else knows different I would appreciate their input.
     
  5. 2008/11/09
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    I think you mentioned these switches in the past Chiles4, when I investigated it, I found no relevance to a Personal Computer situation, only to servers. The Users they talk about are workstations across a network. I could not find that it would be useful on a single user (PC) system.

    Matt
     

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