XP Pro 32bit/64bit Q's

Have 4 GB (2 x 2GB) of Kingston HyperX (CL-4) memory installed on my XPS with 32-bit XP-Pro - My Computer/Properties only recognizes 3.0 GB of it. I thought it'd be in the range of 3.25-3.5 GB...I have three questions regarding this:

1) Why is this so low? Is it because I have two internal harddrives and they needed more RAM dedicated to it? Do those even have memory mapping? Or is it just my 8800 GTX video cards?

2) Should I get XP Pro 64-bit to recognize the four full gigs? Are there known driver conflicts with hardware/GPU's and the 64-bit XP OS? (answer my question under the assumption that I will not accept Vista)

3) Can my computer support up to 8 GB with the 64 bit XP-Pro? Or is this a feature designated by my motherboard/BIOS to be 4 GB?


I was also remembering reading somewhere that there's a hack [however uncertain and unsafe] that would allow a 32-bit environment to acknowledge the full 4 GB - can anyone point me in the right direction/thread? I know I need the 36 bit PAE and AWE API hacks...but I need instructions on this.

 

1) It all depends on the motherboard

2) NO XP Pro 64 bit has very poor support with drivers and is generally unstable

3) No I believe the motherboard of the XPS series/Santa rosa chipset is up to four gb, some others such as ( i believe it was) the Vostro 1500 has been proven to work with up to 6gb.

PAE is a waste and messes with your computer in general, and it will not use all 4gb

 

I ran XP64 for over a year and had no problems whatsoever. I also had a very good result with drivers, and had current drivers for all of my desktop hardware. If by "poor" you mean obscure devices and legacy stuff, then you need to redefine your definition of "poor".

I think the most trouble I had was a Sager's built-in webcam and infrared port. OH NOES POOR DRIVER SUPPORT. Mind you, the nVidia graphics card on it was fully supported with current drivers.

 

1. It depends upon the devices installed in your notebook. Try removing the wireless card, and the card reader etc, and you'll see more memory available. Anyway, you can check msinfo32 for the devices taking up the memory.
2. If >3GB, go for XP 64. (And Vista 64 is much, much better)
3. XP 64 will support 8GB or more, and if your motherboard can support 4GB, it should be able to support upto 8GB. Depends more upon the BIOS. The 965 chipset (both desktop and mobile) are limited to 8GB.

Force-enabling PAE is a bad idea. It'll cause device/driver conflicts.

 

I am copying a post over from another thread where I asked this question impatiently yesterday:

1) it's just under 3GB because your processor needs to reserve 1GB of memory space for your graphics cards memory ( the processor does this so it can "talk" to the graphics cards properly, the graphics cards aren't using your system RAM)

2)i'd highly recommend against it, as there is very little driver support for XP 64 in comparison to the 64 bit versions of vista, Dell don't even offer XP 64 bit drivers on their websites, and the 32 bit drivers will not work on a 64 bit Operating system, do you really need more than 3GB of memory? even assuming XP eats 512mb, that's 2.5GB of space for your applications to play about with.

whereas Vista and its 64 bit counterpart are essentially the same system, (and with exception of drivers you'd not notice any difference between the two) Windows XP and Windows XP 64 were created miles apart.

3) it's capped by the bios/ motherboard etc, but the cap is 8GB, if you had the money to get 8GB of ram, then you would be able to see it all under a 64 bit O.S

the "hacks" your referring to is a mixture of PAE hard ware hacks(Physical Address Extension) and certain software hacks.. not only are they bad in and of themselves, but they'll only benefit you in software built to actually accomodate the hacks, if you want 4GB or more, then get a 64bit O.S.

for more information on 32 bit processor limitation, try reading this : http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html
(GalaxyWolf)

 

XP 64 is fine, if you can find the drivers. (From the device manufacturer's site)

PAE is a bad idea.

System Information will show you what all is eating your memory....

 

Vista ultimate would be the alternate to Xp pro, right? I'm thinking this might be a better idea, alebeit a memory hog, thereby defeating the purpose of recognizing the extra RAM to begin with. I'd like to hear more from people who have used XP Pro x64 with good results, specifically with respect to gaming/intense application handling. I have no problem downloading third party drivers and stuff for individual components, but bear in mind I'm on an XPS laptop...

 

I guess after seeing this post, my question has been answered from this post.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=308178

 

It all depends on your computer, my computer is supported by Dell for pretty much everything.

 

See if Dell has a BIOS update available for your model (dell.com, support section, drivers and downloads). From what I've heard here, most Dells can get 3.5 gb with a 32-bit OS... although I don't know about your model and configuration.

 

Yeah, my video card alone takes up 1 gig of space, let alone the other components, so that would explain it. I'm using A09 BIOS, which is the latest I believe.

I'm using nlite currently to create a new Windows installation, but I have some questions first:

1) Does anyone know the default installation path for service pack 3? I'm trying to slipstream it, but can't find the **** .exe for the life of me!

2) Can I create an ISO and stick it on a DVD, rather than a CD? CD's are 700 MB, and since the XP Pro installation is 569 MB already, with the service pack and audio/video drivers and other things, I feel I'd surpass one CD. Should I stick it on two CD's? Or is one DVD with all the files possible?

3) What are the .ini 'preset' files, and is this important?

 

To the original questions:

*It's the 8800 GTX's. They take up 512 MB each, reducing it to 3.00 GB.
*Not really sure, but I think the others are right. Unless you need more than 3 GB, there's not really a good reason to switch OS'es.
*Not officially, but based on the Inspiron 1720 being able to support it (thread in first 5 pages of so of Inspiron/Studio forum), my guess it it will be able to support 8 GB de facto.

As to the later questions, that's well outside my realm of experience, but the one .exe I do know of for XP SP3 is the one that comes with the XP SP3 Network Installations download (which is the same as regular XP SP3, just downloadable rather than Windows Update, and slightly larger in size).