Firstly let me say I've seen a number of similar questions on SuperUser, and I don't think this is a duplicate. (Most address 4GB RAM installed. I have 6GB)
I have Windows XP 32-bit running on a i7-based Xeon system with 6GB of RAM. I only see 3.5GB of RAM in Windows.
Is there any way to squeeze more visible RAM out of this set up? Even an extra 1GB would be great.
Does having 6GB (vs 4GB) of RAM installed help at all? (I.e Even if I loose the 3.5-4.0 GB region, can I use the area above it?)
P.S. Will eventually move to Windows 7 64-bit, but can't for now.
Answer
Even with Physical Address Extensions enabled Windows XP still allows only 4 GB of memory. I know this can be a little confusing since Windows Server 2003 allows up to 64 GB of RAM (with the proper processor support). Sadly your OS is bounded to 4 GB in this case. The kernel may support up to 64 GB with PAE, but it is locked down in XP. It seems the only reason they still include it is for DEP support. From Physical Address Extension - PAE Memory and Windows:
Although support for PAE memory is typically associated with support for more than 4 GB of RAM, PAE can be enabled on Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003, and later 32-bit versions of Windows to support hardware enforced Data Execution Prevention (DEP).
EDIT: I just want to add that this 4GB cap includes dedicated video memory or memory set aside for a on board GPU.
No comments:
Post a Comment