Hi All,

I have bought a Dell Vostro 1400 with Windows vista 32bit. I am doing some simulation on vmware. Thus, i have installed the vostro with 4GB of ram. However, it only detected 3.5GB. Could anybody tell me is this normall? How could i "redempt" all those 4GB ram. Thanks for advise !

Merry Christmas !!!

32-bit OS' don't recognize the full 4gb. I don't remember the reason for it, but it's normal and there is nothing wrong with your system/RAM. If you want the full 4gb, go to a 64-bit OS.

32bit OS are not able to address the entire 4GB memory, google and wikipedia can tell you that

http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-q [...] ows-vista/

http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-q [...] ry-limits/

Thanks for all the reply. Does PAE help? I cant find a detail PAE info. Anyone tried usng PAE to "redempt" those missing ram ?


Many thanks !!

no. the ram isnt missing, follow the google info. 32bit cant handle 4gb its in the math

I installed SP1 and vista 32 bit is seeing 4gb of ram
it shouldn't be possible but it is???

screenshot ?

32bit can address 4GB, but what that involves depends on the system, and how it's used, because it takes up some of that possible address space to account for various other parts of the system which eats into that address space for IRQs etc.

Vista SP1 does 'see' the full 4 GB but alot of that is still going to be eaten into. Here's a quicky explanation including SP1's new support at softpedia;

http://news.softpedia.com/news/32- [...] 4239.shtml

oh yeah, and PAE basically improves this to allow you the full 4GB of memory and prior to SP1 it wasn't allowed to access but the bottom 32bit of the memory, thus negating the benefits of PAE.