Available Ram

[pswayne]

Hi. This is my first post and this is probably a question I should know the answer to, but don't.

I've got 4- 1gig sticks, matched, and I realize my OS won't see past 3, but System Information is showing only 2.04 gb available. Shouldn't I at least have 3gb available?

Win XP media center edition
2-256 MB video cards
4 monitors

 

[veg1992]

Do you have Video Cards that have Turbocache or Hypermemory (these steal 256mb-512mb of your Physical Memory for normal video RAM)

EDIT: I was wrong it says Available Physical Memory, or what is not being used, look at the part above it that says Total Physical RAM

 

[Eric1]

Need a little more info. Are you looking at physical memory available in msinfo32? Also how much stuff are you running? Is your taskbar full of stuff?

 

[NightSurge]

You aren't running a 64-bit OS. I see this question WAY too many times. If you want to see and get the full benefit of more than 3GB of RAM you HAVE to have a 64-bit operating system. 32-bit just doesn't support that much memory. If you really want to use all your 4GB you will need XP Pro 64-bit, or Vista 64-bit.

 

[Eric1]

You aren't running a 64-bit OS. I see this question WAY too many times. If you want to see and get the full benefit of more than 3GB of RAM you HAVE to have a 64-bit operating system. 32-bit just doesn't support that much memory. If you really want to use all your 4GB you will need XP Pro 64-bit, or Vista 64-bit.

Man look at what he just told you, he realizes his operating system wont post past 3GB. This is another issue probably has lots of stuff running or hardware issue.

 

[NightSurge]

Ah, yikezers... Well still, the information it gives will always be off by about 1GB since it will not use the 4th for the appropriate system memory. 2GB out of 3 is a bit low, but he didn't specify what all was running, etc. It is very unlikely that this is a hardware issue.

 

[veg1992]

Do you have Video Cards that have Turbocache or Hypermemory (these steal 256mb-512mb of your Physical Memory for normal video RAM)

EDIT: I was wrong it says Available Physical Memory, or what is not being used, look at the part above it that says Total Physical RAM

he said Available RAM, and I checked the System Information myself on my own, and theres both Available Physical Memory and Total Physical Memory

 

[pswayne]

Man look at what he just told you, he realizes his operating system wont post past 3GB. This is another issue probably has lots of stuff running or hardware issue.

Sorry, I stepped out for a minute. Yes, I'm running a few things, including two printers, ultramon, a monitor calibration system, etc.

 

[Eric1]

Yah it's possible that you just have a lot of stuff running but I still can't be sure. Also if you are running an antivirus program that can use more memory as well hopefully you are not using Norton, if you use antivirus because that can really drain your resources.

 

[pswayne]

I am using Norton. But I checked under System Properties as well, and it says 2.79 GHz. 2.75 GB of RAM. Why wouldn't it say 3GB?