Question

4

As far as I am aware, one can view the RAM Size in System Properties:

From the above screenshot it seems that My RAM is 3.5 GB, but as far as I can tell I actually inserted 2 two GB RAM into my motherboard.

Is it that my memory is faulty, or that the information displayed in System Properties is faulty?

flag	asked Aug 21 at 7:31 Ngu Soon Hui 1,302●3●14 52% accept rate

-1 asked and answered all over the place already. – DannySmurf Nov 24 at 22:53

JP · Answer 1 · 2009-08-21 07:42:20Z

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It's because your OS is 32-bit. Check out Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM?

answered Aug 21 at 7:42

JP
4,812●8●21

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Not neccesasrily. I only have 3 GiB of my 4, due to a chipset limitation. But yes, it's probably the 32-bittiness. – Johannes Rössel Aug 21 at 10:57

Erm, the chipset is rather irrelevant. 32-bit Windows (excepting Server editions and PAE hacks) will not see 4GB of RAM. – Graeme Donaldson Sep 17 at 21:00

Troggy · Answer 2 · 2009-09-17 20:13:15Z

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

This will tell you everything about the memory installed in your machine along with the cpu. It will show which slots contain what size sticks and what speed they are running at.

The link JP posted from coding horror explains exactly why you only see 3.5gb out of the 4 you have installed is because of a 32bit OS.

Tom · Answer 3 · 2009-08-21 07:41:54Z

3

Because you are running 32Bit Windows 3.5GB is the maximum amount of RAM you can support.

A 64bit Operating system is required to use any more RAM. So currently you are wasting 512MB of RAM.

answered Aug 21 at 7:41

Tom
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The maximum is 4GB minus (amount of virtual address space consumed by various other devices), which isn't necessarily 3.5GB. The maximum I've seen so far is 3.75GB on a virtual server. – Graeme Donaldson Sep 17 at 21:03