4gb Ram in vista x86 shows as 1.65 gb usable

i have a dv6226tx laptop , which i recently changed to vista ultimate service pack 1 x86 & installed 4gb ram ! but to my utter surprise it shows up as only 1.65gb available physical memory !

what can be done about it !

 

u need to install a 64-bit OS....only then will u be able to utilize the 4gig ram....such as x64 vista or x64 XP (dont go for XP )

 

Try swapping the sticks or testing them one at the time to see if you don't have a defective one.

 

yeah check the modules....check if they are they properly seated or maybe one of em is defective....as i remember reading on one vista x86's support site pages that vista x86 shud recognize 4gig ram (max)
but it wud show only 3.2 gig since 0.8 gig is used by vista's page file....
*i think*
u may also check if the bios has DEP enabled or just use the /PAE switch in the boot parameters....
i am not very sure about this technical stuff....so i ll hand u over some links

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=DEP+PAE&src=IE-SearchBox

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/aa366521.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/aa366778.aspx

 

PAE isn't going to help anything. It might even make it worse.

Make sure you update your BIOS. Additionally, do you see only 1.65GB in Linux?

 

32-bit is limited to 3.2GB, no matter if you use PAE or not. In fact, PAE is supposedly already turned on in all 32-bit Vistas. That's also a function of the OS, not the BIOS.

The 800MB is used for memory-mapped I/O, not the pagefile.

I also have a guide in my sig about how to use memtest86+ to test your RAM.

 

yeah i guess memory mapped I/O....which means since a 32-bit OS can only address 4 GB max, some of that space has to be used for video adapter, RAM, PCI card ROMS, various I/O functions..??
and i never said PAE is a function of the bios..

 

well i guess thats pretty much clear that vista x86 can only read 3.2 gig of ram....so if d2d's pc is only reading half of that then it shud a be a bad ram module or it is improperly seated....
d2d can also boot with the Vista DVD and run the memory diagnostic to check if there is a bad memory stick....

 

Are you looking inside of the Task Manager for the amount of memory you have available? If so, it is showing you the amount of memory that isn't being used currently and can still be allocated for other tasks. You can also see the total amount of memory in the system inside here, or you can right click on my computer and click on properties and it will show you the version of Windows, the amount of RAM, the CPU, etc.

Everybody else already took care of describing the 3.2GB max memory that Windows 32-bit can use.