Comments for Why doesn't Windows show all 4gigabytes of memory I have installed?

Comment from Ted Pendlebury on 2009-10-20

2009-10-20T12:48:57Z

Funny, now that I have a 1gb video card, Vista (32 bit) is showing my 4gb of RAM. I wonder why that is...

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Comment from Carlos on 2009-06-10

2009-06-10T19:18:26Z

Using windows 2008 server 64bit I can see reporting the 4gig but using windows7 64 bit it reports 3.75 available

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Comment from UWS_C!@ on 2008-07-22

2008-07-23T04:07:36Z

Google works great...
32bit OS 4GB limit...
Video Memory is part of that limit.
4GB + 2 x 1GB Video = 6GB Total.
6GB Total - 4GB Addressable - 20% System use = 1.6 Available.

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A comment on: Why doesn't Windows show all 4gigabytes of memory I have installed?

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Comment from Russell Knudson on 2008-07-09

2008-07-09T15:53:05Z

I have a brand new 32 bit system with 4 GB ram, and a pair of 1G graphics cards.

Windows only shows 1.7G of physical memeory, and in fact when I exceeded that amount (which is very easy with vista running) it slowed down terribly. What's going on here? This is a bit different from the rest of the thread.

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Comment from Kasper on 2008-06-25

2008-06-25T15:04:43Z

natasha8384 - That is partly correct. SP1 will report the amount of system ram currently in the machine, but it will not use it since that is impossible os a 32bit unless you enable the various switches.

That means it is a cosmetical change more than anything. But I suppose it confuses people so likely it's for the better.

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Comment from Richard Salvaty on 2008-06-23

2008-06-23T14:37:18Z

James,

What he is saying is that if you had 3gigs and lets say you have a 512 meg video card you should see something along these lines for available memory 3584 mega bytes. Thats your 3 gigs the OS sees PLUS the memory from your video card. With 4 gigs, that is ALL that the OS will see, period. So you will lose functinality of 512 megs of your System Ram, because the OS will see the 512 megs of your video memory. Thats just the way the 32 bit systems is designed. When they made XP no one really had thoughts of more then 4 gigs of RAM then. I hope this helps clarify it for you.

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Comment from James M. Anderson on 2008-04-29

2008-04-29T20:47:21Z

I read your explanation of seeing - or not seeing all 4 GB of RAM, but one thing I don't understand: You said that if I have, say, 3 GB, Microsoft "hides" the amount of RAM needed for the video card somewhere in the 3 GB, but if I have 4 GB, it cannot hide the amount used in video. I don't understand that at all. It sounds backwards, so it is obvious that I am not understanding what you meant. Can you re-phrase that somehow, so that I can understand it?

Thanks, Jim Anderson

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Comment from Jimmy on 2008-04-28

2008-04-29T04:37:59Z

Hi, i have simular prob's. i installed 4 gb of dual ddr2 mem into my pc and only 3 gb show up in properties under right click comp. you said previously that was worse..?? what could be wrong or please explain why it is worse. thanks

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Comment from Rashed on 2008-03-13

2008-03-13T19:17:31Z

guyz i am facing a weired prob.

i just installed 4 gb ddr2 ram in my gigabyte ga-945gcmx s2 mobo with intel core 2 duo. but my bios shows 3.25 gb ram ( 340.... bytes). and obviously win xp shows 3.25 gb ram.

then i installed win xp 64 bit pro and it shud show 4 gb ram as its 64 bit os but it also shows 3.25 gb of ram. then i thought ok as bios finds 3.25 gb ram then my mobo must be faulty.

then i logged in my mac leopard os ( i am trying it in my pc as i will be buying a mac air in few days). mac leopard is a 64 bit os. surprisingly mac leopard shows full 4 GB of ram!!!!!!!!!!!!

then i tried everest and cpuz (3rd party softwares which shows system specs). all of these softwares shows 4 Gb of ram.

so though bios is showing 3.25 of ram actually the mobo gets the 4 gb ram. but i still cant find why win xp 64 bit cant find the 4 gb ram.

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Comment from Alex on 2008-03-11

2008-03-12T05:12:28Z

wow this is a big big help thanks a lot everybody and Leo.. I went CRAZY been going back and forth to the computer store to return the stuff .. the first ram was truly defective because my computer wouldn't start at all..so i went to exchanged it, got a new Ram and installed it just to find out the computer not using it fully "3326" then i wasted the next 30 minutes just to switch the ram randomly ..once again thanks everybody now i can finally feel like i actually bought my Ram.

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Comment from Glen on 2008-01-22

2008-01-22T19:47:32Z

Yes it is being used, for example, if you have a video card with 512MB of memory and 4GB of RAM, a 32bit operating system can only address 4GB when technically you have 4.5GB when you include the memory from the video card.

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Comment from Sam W. on 2008-01-22

2008-01-22T18:03:49Z

So I'm still a bit hazy on something: Is that last bit of RAM still being used somehow (but just now showing up?) or is it "wasted?"

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Comment from Cecil Cooper on 2008-01-18

2008-01-18T18:50:16Z

Mines worse!!!!

I have a Gigabyte MA-790FX-DQ6 motherboard with a Phenom CPU. I have 8GB of A-Data (2GB each). My board will accept up to 16GB.

At boot up it shows all 8GB, but when I get into WinXP all the shows is 4GB.

Any help here?

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A comment on: Why doesn't Windows show all 4gigabytes of memory I have installed?

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Comment from Arthur on 2008-01-16

2008-01-17T00:34:26Z

Very nice explanation by Leo for something I couldn't understand. He'll get a Latte for this.

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A comment on: Why doesn't Windows show all 4gigabytes of memory I have installed?

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Comment from natasha8384 on 2008-01-16

2008-01-16T23:34:22Z

If your Vista shows 3326 MB RAM, then everything's fine -- all 4 GB are recognized by the system, but as Leo explained, only 3326 MB are available to the OS.

Now, in the (upcoming) SP1 this information is changed and if you have 4GB of RAM than Vista will show 4GB of RAM regardless of how much of it is available to the OS. I think this "old fashioned" representation of physical RAM makes people more comfy. I just tested the SP1 Release Candidate that's available to public, and indeed the system reports the actual amount of physical RAM -- instead of 3326 MB, it says 4 GB.

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Comment from stephen velasco on 2008-01-12

2008-01-12T08:04:37Z

try reading your motherboards manual. some motherboards (like mine) asus p5s-mxse, would accept up to 4gig of memory but will show only 3gig(yes! this is much worst!).

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Comment from Daniel Cote on 2008-01-11

2008-01-12T02:50:33Z

Thanks Leo,

This has been driving me nuts for the past 8 months.

Now I find that when I run the GRC utility that Hardware Virtualization is "Locked On"

When I click on that, it tells me:

"This processor's advanced hardware support for virtualization has been enabled and "locked on" to prevent virtual machine penetration compromise. This was probably done by your system's BIOS or by whatever desktop virtual machine system you are using, if any. But if neither are the case you may wish to determine what has done this since it could be a sign of an advanced root kit compromise"

ARRGGH! Now something else to worry about.

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A comment on: Why doesn't Windows show all 4gigabytes of memory I have installed?

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