Showing all 4 Gigabytes of RAM with 32-bit Windows Vista Premium

I don't know if the word is out there yet, but I believe that Microsoft has made a memory change in SP1 for Vista.

I normally run Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I decided to give the 32-bit Vista Premium that ship with the P-6831FX a shot to see the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit.

When I first installed the OS, I was showing just over 3 Gigs of RAM. After installing all software and completing all Windows updates to include SP1, all of a sudden I am showing the full 4 Gigs with a 32-bit version of Vista.

If this is old news, I apoligize, but last time I checked, everyone was only getting just over 3 Gigs with 32-bit as recent as a few days ago.

I have attatched a screen shot.

 

Old news but it is caused by SP1. It shows 4GB memory but will not be able to use more then your previous limit.

 

X2P is right, vista 32 can only utilize ~3.2GB. It's a 32-bit limitation. The fix in SP1 just acknowleges you have 4GB installed. It's a little misleading.

 

I now see that after I tried to verify that Windows was actually letting me use it all. Oh well. Rookie mistake.

 

I am sure microsoft made the change so there would be less support calls after someone installs 4gb of ram and does not see it all. Of course all of us "geeks" know the reason, but Dad, Grandma, and our wifes don't. Thats just my take, I like seeing my 4gb of ram, I paid for it

 

Very good point.

 

Just wondoring what is the XP limit. With XP Home 32bit SP2 Japanese version I am getting a reading a 3.5Gb

 

It's not an 'XP' limit. It's a limit of using a 32-bit OS (a little more complicated than that, but that's too much to explain).
The limitation is that the maximum memory that is addressable is 4GB, which includes your RAM + the graphic card's Ram + address space for all other devices. These devices take precedence, which is why less RAM is utilized.

So for example, a laptop with integrated graphics will use 3.5-3.7 RAM, while a desktop with 2 cards which have 1GB each in SLI/CF will show less than 2GB.

 

You can access the full 4GB in a 32bit OS - up to 64GB actually.

Search for PAE in google

 

Wiki claims Vista SP2 has PAE and can recognize the 4Gb at least... Care to clarify?

 

Explained in sig. 64 bit guide.

 

What I want clarified is iaMtHeAnimaL claims a 32bit OS can access up to 64Gb via PAE, then I wikied PAE and 32bit Vista SP1 showed up as a result of supporting PAE, thus meaning it should support over 4Gb RAM, not the obvious difference between 32bit and 64bit OS. Thanks anyways.

 

Read this first and pay particular attention to the last section about driver incompatibility as quite a few drivers can cause problems (I'm not sure about P-6831 drivers as I haven't enabled PAE on this machine myself): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/en-us

Enable support for 4GB of RAM (or more) in Vista 32-bit

On a computer that has 4 GB of RAM, the System Properties dialog box and the System Information dialog box may report less memory than you expect. This problem occurs because the address space is limited to 4 GB in a 32-bit hardware environment. Memory may be relocated to make room for addresses that the basic input/output system (BIOS) reserves for hardware. However, because of this limitation, Windows Vista cannot access memory that is relocated above the 4 GB boundary.

Solution: Open an elevated Command Prompt, type BCDEdit /set pae ForceEnable and press Enter.
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Is this proven to be that simple?