Any issues with using 4gb in XP 32-bit?

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Spankbot-5000

Weaksauce
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I know all about the memory hole in XP above 3gb, and I'm fine with that. I have purchased 2 sticks of 2gb ram though to future proof my system should I upgrade to Vista 64-bit at some point. The question I have is whether there are any instability issues, crashes, or any other general system weirdness when using 4gb of installed ram with XP 32-bit? Does the OS just ignore X amount of ram above 3gb and merrily go about it's business, or do some programs or even the OS go weird at times when ignoring that ram?
 
I have 4x1GB and XP only access 2.75GB while CPU-Z and the BIOS report the whole 4GB but aside from that I have no issues.
 
As far as I have heard 32bit XP can only address a maximum of 3.25GB of memory, I have however never heard of anyone having trouble after installing 2x2GB other than that. (I have heard of people having issues with OC'ing and 4x1GB but that's it...)
 
Good to know.

Memory in particular has been giving me fits with this latest upgrade, as there is so much conflicting info out there. Some people claim XP x86 will see all 4gb of ram, so say it won't. Others say to use the /3GB switch in your boot.ini, other says it's useless after SP2. And on and on and on....

I always come here though for the final word, as the [H]ard crew seems to know best.
 
My intent was to do exactly as you and upgrade to Vista 64. I installed 4 GB with XP 32 and had issues with some games. The OS was stable but Settlers and MOH would crash with it. Didn't try it with anything else. So yes, some games have issues.
 
Spankbot-5000 said:
Good to know.

Memory in particular has been giving me fits with this latest upgrade, as there is so much conflicting info out there. Some people claim XP x86 will see all 4gb of ram, so say it won't. Others say to use the /3GB switch in your boot.ini, other says it's useless after SP2. And on and on and on....

I always come here though for the final word, as the [H]ard crew seems to know best.
Click to expand...

x86 OSs can address a maximum of 4gb worth of memory addresses. So you get 4gb minus memory mapped devices(video cards being the biggest chunk here). Usually comes out to something around 3.75-2.75gb of RAM address space remaining. Should not cause any problem to go over that it just will not get used.
 
I am running 2x2GB G.Skill DDR2 1000 with my XP partition and Vista64 partition. XP sees 3.25GB and I have had ZERO problems with games, apps, etc. Everything runs perfectly and nothing has crashed.
 
speedrat said:
My intent was to do exactly as you and upgrade to Vista 64. I installed 4 GB with XP 32 and had issues with some games. The OS was stable but Settlers and MOH would crash with it. Didn't try it with anything else. So yes, some games have issues.
Click to expand...

Are you certain this was not an issue with memory opposed to the 4 GB limit?
 
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