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Possible Duplicate:
8gb ram in 32bit operating system

I have installed 8 GB RAM in my system. Also upgraded OS to Windows 8 32 bit. My System configuration:

Intel i7 960.
Ram Crossair 4 GB X 2 1666Mhz
Motherboard Asus Rampage III Gene
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 240.
2 TB Seagate

I have updated all drivers BIOS also. But my system showing only 2.99 GB out of 8GB usable RAM.

Please help me fix this problem.

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  • 32 bit can't recognize all that RAM.
    – Mab879
    Nov 25, 2012 at 5:32
  • 32 bit OSes can absolutely use more than 4GB of RAM (32-bit Win2k3 datacenter could use 64 GB); Microsoft has chosen to not do enable/provide this in most of their 32-bit OSes however, so that is the limitation you are hitting.
    – Joe
    Nov 25, 2012 at 5:37
  • wait for a PAE patch. Ask wj32: wj32.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/…
    – magicandre1981
    Nov 25, 2012 at 9:30

2 Answers 2

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A 32 bit OS will not use more than 4 gb of ram inspite of adding more. This is due to many hardware architecture limitation

2^32 = 4294967296 bytes = 4194304 kb = 4096 mb = 4 gb

Install a 64 bit OS to use all of your RAM.

For viewing (not using) more than 4 gb of ram PAE (Physical address extension) must be enabled.

However there exist certain hacks such as this one which which make use of all available ram however this heavily modifies your kernel, and your system might become unstable.

Note: this hack is only for Windows 7 32 bit

Until you can upgrade to a 64 bit OS you can use this software to make use of the additional unused ram as a high speed disk drive (cache)

A similar freeware version of the above software exist with limitation of only be able to support disks of size upto 4 GB. Check it here, check this too, or Google for more alternatives, if you are interested

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    I think by "a 32-bit OS" you mean "a 32-bit application"? Because obviously OSes that support PAE recognize the extra RAM.
    – user541686
    Nov 25, 2012 at 5:33
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    @Mehrdad OSes that support PAE do recognize that extra RAM but due to a lock on the kernel imposed by Microsoft they are not allowed to use it.
    – Algorithms
    Nov 25, 2012 at 5:39
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    +1 to counter the downvote. This seems like a pretty good answer.
    – beatgammit
    Nov 25, 2012 at 5:41
  • +1 here too. @Algorithms: Sure, but that's just a Windows limitation imposed by Microsoft (and patchable, as you noted), not a general 32-bit OS limitation.
    – user541686
    Nov 25, 2012 at 5:44
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32bit windows is only capable of using 2gb or 3gb, depending on version, edition and configuration. The appropriate thing to do is to install 64-bit windows 8 (your Windows 8 license should cover both).

If you can't use 64-bit windows for some reason, your only real choice is to use special software to use the ram above 3gb for a cache. Your motherboard probably came with software to do this.

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    Well it won't be stuff included with your motherboard, guarantee you that
    – Simon Sheehan
    Nov 25, 2012 at 6:11
  • Can you please give me some some software's name for enable RAM cache?
    – user1832280
    Nov 26, 2012 at 7:34

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