Vista 64 Ulimate - Memory/RAM Issue

[Chuckster]

Found a problem upgrading from 2 gig of ram to 4 gig of ram. I just added 2 more gig of memory and Vista 64 still only reports 2 gig instead of 4. My bios on boot up shows 4 gig. CPUZ shows all 4 modules installed. 3mark only shows 2 gig , but when you look at its system propertys sheet it shows all 4 banks full with 1 gig in each. So 3rd party programs show 4 gig installed but Vista 64 still only reports 2 gigs.Dont know if its the OS or bios causing it not to see the 4gig.

Here are my specs

MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition Ver 2 - Bios 7.4 - Not OC'ed , but problem still with 3ghz OC
4 gig of Gskill F2-6400CL5D Matched pairs
Intel Core 2 Duo 6600
EVG Nvidia Geforce 7950 GT
Clean install of 64 Vista Ultimate - Not upgrade
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I done searches on google and found some people have no problem seeing the 4 gig and some do.

_ My personal recomendations are , if you are a gamer and have no desire to use 64 bit windows , stick with Windows XP. There are times when I think Vista is just like the Millenium garbage.

 

[calebb]

With Server 2003 you need to edit your boot.ini to add the /PAE switch...

i.e.,

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)
\WINNT="Windows 2003 Datacenter Server" /PAE /basevideo /sos

But there is no boot.ini in Vista...

In this version of Windows, the boot.ini file has been replaced with Boot Configuration Data (BCD). This file is more versatile than boot.ini, and it can apply to computer platforms that use means other than basic input/output system (BIOS) to start the computer.

If you need to make changes to BCD, such as removing entries from the list of displayed operating systems, use the command line tool Bcdedit, an advanced tool intended for administrators and IT professionals. For technical information about Bcdedit, go to the Microsoft website for IT professionals.

bcdedit is a new command line tool in vista... more info here: http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/08d64d13-4f45-4a05-bd86-c99211a93dd91033.mspx?mfr=true


After browsing around technet, I found steps to enable PAE (physical address extensions)

1. Boot Vista to safe mode with command line
2. Run the command: bcdedit /set PAE ForceEnable
3. Run bcdedit again to verify the switch is added
4. Reboot the system and check whether the problem is fixed


(and if this fubars something, boot to safemode again since PAE is never enabled in safe mode).


Incidentally, I thought PAE was only required for 32 bit versions of windows, but apparently somepeople need this with Vista 64bit. (and it seems to only happen to people who upgrade - it could be that if you do a clean install with 4GB memory, the Windows installer enables PAE for you?)


edit: one more thing I stumbled across:

To add to this re the /PAE switch. If your processor supports hardware DEP,
and DEP is on, then PAE is automatically enabled. Hardware DEP uses the PAE
kernel.

One more edit:
If this doesn't work or you don't believe this is an issue - try swapping out your video card! (do you have onboard video you can test with? Or a PCI card?)

 

[Grimlaking]

I need to tag this one as I am thinking of upping to 4 gig of ram myself.

 

[Chuckster]

With Server 2003 you need to edit your boot.ini to add the /PAE switch...

i.e.,



But there is no boot.ini in Vista...



bcdedit is a new command line tool in vista... more info here: http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/08d64d13-4f45-4a05-bd86-c99211a93dd91033.mspx?mfr=true


After browsing around technet, I found steps to enable PAE (physical address extensions)

1. Boot Vista to safe mode with command line
2. Run the command: bcdedit /set PAE ForceEnable
3. Run bcdedit again to verify the switch is added
4. Reboot the system and check whether the problem is fixed


(and if this fubars something, boot to safemode again since PAE is never enabled in safe mode).


Incidentally, I thought PAE was only required for 32 bit versions of windows, but apparently somepeople need this with Vista 64bit. (and it seems to only happen to people who upgrade - it could be that if you do a clean install with 4GB memory, the Windows installer enables PAE for you?)


edit: one more thing I stumbled across:



One more edit:
If this doesn't work or you don't believe this is an issue - try swapping out your video card! (do you have onboard video you can test with? Or a PCI card?)

Thanks for all the info I will try these and let you know how it goes. As far as video cards go I have a couple and will try this as a last resort , what does swapping video cards do to help ram addressing?

 

[Chuckster]

I FOUND IT !

Its easy.

Type MSCONFIG in the "start search"

Click the BOOT tab

Click the ADVANCED button

Uncheck the box that says "Maximun Memory" ( mine was checked with 2048 ) no need to set it just uncheck it.

Reboot and you should now see all your memory.

No need to go into safe mode !

Someone needs to make this a sticky

Thats right folks MSCONFIG still exists in Vista all versions.

 

[ICOM]

Found a problem upgrading from 2 gig of ram to 4 gig of ram. I just added 2 more gig of memory and Vista 64 still only reports 2 gig instead of 4. My bios on boot up shows 4 gig. CPUZ shows all 4 modules installed. 3mark only shows 2 gig , but when you look at its system propertys sheet it shows all 4 banks full with 1 gig in each. So 3rd party programs show 4 gig installed but Vista 64 still only reports 2 gigs.Dont know if its the OS or bios causing it not to see the 4gig.

Here are my specs

MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition Ver 2 - Bios 7.4 - Not OC'ed , but problem still with 3ghz OC
4 gig of Gskill F2-6400CL5D Matched pairs
Intel Core 2 Duo 6600
EVG Nvidia Geforce 7950 GT
Clean install of 64 Vista Ultimate - Not upgrade
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I done searches on google and found some people have no problem seeing the 4 gig and some do.

_ My personal recomendations are , if you are a gamer and have no desire to use 64 bit windows , stick with Windows XP. There are times when I think Vista is just like the Millenium garbage.

Remarkable. I was thinking just last night that Vista "feels" (evidently vista has a feel...) like ME.

I don't mean to sound flippant here but what do you do with 4 gigs of RAM. Man, I just upgraded to 2 gigs and I kinda feel like I tossed my money. I mean, everything was working fine with 1 gig but I've got 2 now for...whatever I guess.

 

[Gatticus]

Because he is running Vista 64bit. 64bit apps use twice as much ram as 32bit so if you had 2gb on 32bit Vista you would want 4gb on 64bit Vista.

 

[ICOM]

Gotcha

 

[CubicleGeek]

Because he is running Vista 64bit. 64bit apps use twice as much ram as 32bit so if you had 2gb on 32bit Vista you would want 4gb on 64bit Vista.

It's more like 20-30% higher RAM requirements. I'm not sure if moving from 2GB to 4GB has really made as big of a difference in Vista64 than moving from 1GB to 2GB in Windows XP did. Still evaluating. The only difference is that my average RAM usage hovers around 33% @ 4GB compared to 50% @ 2GB. I've also never seen the usage spike past around 60%, where it would hit the 90's when I was running 2GB. Performance seems identical.

 

[calebb]

It's more like 20-30% higher RAM requirements. I'm not sure if moving from 2GB to 4GB has really made as big of a difference in Vista64 than moving from 1GB to 2GB in Windows XP did. Still evaluating. The only difference is that my average RAM usage hovers around 33% @ 4GB compared to 50% @ 2GB. I've also never seen the usage spike past around 60%, where it would hit the 90's when I was running 2GB. Performance seems identical.

Give it a couple weeks and your RAM utilization will get back up to 90%

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/03/VistaKernel/