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Discussion: General Forums / Hardware & Software Discussion - Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM - So I have a bit of an odd situation it seems. Is there something I'm
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08-24-2009, 03:13 AM #1
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Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM
So I have a bit of an odd situation it seems. Is there something I'm missing or is my 64-bit OS acting like a 32-bit for some reason?
Reapator, overlord of ponies
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08-24-2009, 10:51 AM #2
Re: Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM
How much RAM do you have installed? Are you sure you installed Win7 Beta/RC 64-bit and not 32-bit?
Acreo Aeneas
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08-24-2009, 01:04 PM #3
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Re: Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM
I'm pretty sure I would have checked that before making a post here. It seems like an update or something did it since it just automatically switched over but I don't see anything there to suggest something like that happened.Reapator, overlord of ponies
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08-24-2009, 02:49 PM #4
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Re: Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM
Do you have onboard video with RAM allocated to it? My laptop does the same exact thing and its because I have 256MB allocated to video thus giving me 3.75GB usable. Go into your bios and make sure the onboard is disabled and bring the ram allocation down to the minimum it allows. (unless its your only video)
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08-24-2009, 03:22 PM #5
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Re: Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM
Nope, no on board video, just a P35 chipset. I don't know the exact time frame but this has only showed up recently, it used to read and address all 4GB but as you can see now it does not.
Reapator, overlord of ponies
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08-24-2009, 03:48 PM #6
Re: Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM
Try reseatting your RAM modules. Otherwise, if that's not working, run Memtest86+ on startup to see if maybe one of the sticks went bad.
Is this the RC or Beta build?Acreo Aeneas
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08-24-2009, 04:20 PM #7
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Re: Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM
I ran the built-in windows memory tester and it provided no errors, this is RC
Reapator, overlord of ponies
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08-24-2009, 05:49 PM #8
Re: Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM
I've been reading various forum threads elsewhere describing your exact same problem and answers run the gamut from "install more than 4 GBs of RAM" to "reseat RAM" to "Windows 7 is messed up".
So far, this one makes the most sense: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...f-986c9fe3475a
It seems Windows 7 RC/Beta is handling memory (physical) in a way that's different than in Vista or even XP. The tech helpers mention that you should enable "dynamic memory remapping" and "virtualization" in Windows 7. Otherwise, the memory issue you describe is known to MS and it's up to them to fix it.
There's a guess further down the thread that says one user's BIOS may be at fault in addressing what's actually available. Bunch of other guesses and such as well.
This other thread doesn't quite make sense to me. The first guy mentions that the 32-bit limitation is hardware-based and thus carried over to x86-64 Windows. Maybe some of the engineers here can explain that in detail and if it is even true. Somehow I doubt it since I'm using Vista x64 with 4 GBs of RAM.
I'm assuming you have newer hardware so a chipset limitation won't play into this scenario (like if you have the 945 chipset).Last edited by Acreo Aeneas; 08-24-2009 at 10:32 PM.
Acreo Aeneas
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08-24-2009, 06:39 PM #9
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Re: Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM
the chipset you are using is possibly the culprit.
even under x64, some chipsets are limited to 4gb of TOTAL ram... laptops are notorious for using the 945 chipset - the last with the limitation - b/c it was cheaper to use an older platform that still accepted currect cpu's *read - less work for the oem* and more than 4gig ram in a laptop is prohibitively expensive right now. There is no way to fix it if you have a laptop. If it is a desktop, you have to upgrade the mobo to a higher chipset.
Vista actually made the 3.25 / 3.5 / 3.75 issue "go away" with sp1 by hiding the fact that is was not using it all and showing what was installed instead.
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08-25-2009, 01:25 PM #10
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Re: Win7 64-bit with only 3.25GB or usable RAM
It is not the chipset since my P35 MoBo is limited to 8GB of RAM, but I found the solution.
A few weeks ago when I was trying to get a defective video card to work an Evga tech and I were looking around in the Bios. I changed a few things as instructed but to no avail for the GPU. One of the things changed was a option called Memory Remap Feature. This allowed remapping of overlapped PCI memory above total physical memory. Flip it back to enabled and I'm back to 4095MB of RAM.
Thanks for the help.Reapator, overlord of ponies
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