where did my memory go?

this might be more of a generic mainboard question but that group
doesn't seem active.
I have an asus p7p55d-e mb running windows xp. I have 2 G.Skill 2GB
sticks. Sandra correctly shows 2 X 2GB, but when I view the amount of
memory in the system properties window it shows 2.99 GB.
I have also run RightMark Memory Stability test and that shows 2047GB
total memory with available physical of 2047GB.
so my question is where did my memory go ( too young for Alzheimers! )


thanks
john

coltrane wrote:
this might be more of a generic mainboard question but that group
doesn't seem active.
I have an asus p7p55d-e mb running windows xp. I have 2 G.Skill 2GB
sticks. Sandra correctly shows 2 X 2GB, but when I view the amount of
memory in the system properties window it shows 2.99 GB.
I have also run RightMark Memory Stability test and that shows 2047GB
total memory with available physical of 2047GB.
so my question is where did my memory go ( too young for Alzheimers! )


thanks
john

First, let's start with the hardware. Processors/chipsets, with a working
PAE implementation, support 36 bit or more addressing. That allows a
mapping from a 4GB virtual space (32 bit virtual address), to a much larger
physical address. That makes it possible, for a 32 bit OS, to support
more than 4GB of memory. You could support 64GB this way.

32 bit virtual --- page_tables and translation --- 36 bit physical

Microsoft has PAE turned on for other reasons. But in doing so, they
chose not to support more than 4GB physically. It helps them
separate their more expensive server OS products, from a desktop
products. We wouldn't want businesses running their servers, with
a $99 copy of WinXP Home :-)

http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer....nse/memory.htm

From the 4GB of physical addresses Microsoft gives you, you need address space
for things like the video card. So that comes out of the address space
limit first. The remaining space, after all busses have addresses assigned,
is available to address memory.

Right now, you have 4GB physical memory installed, but roughly 1.01GB
of that memory, there is no way to get to it. No address generated
by the processor, is currently able to trigger an access to those
1.01GB of locations. It is like building houses in the middle of
no-where, with no "streets" to get to the houses.

If you used some other 32 bit OS, with a working PAE implementation,
you may be able to access more of the memory.

*******

With regard to single process and maximum memory usage, there are
a couple limits there. The kernel/user space split must be adjusted,
to make more of the memory available. The RightMark program must be
compiled to be large address aware, to use more than 2GB. So you probably
need to change something in boot.ini, to allow the RightMark program to
use more memory.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...78(VS.85).aspx

Memory type Limit in 32-bit Windows

User-mode virtual 2 GB
address space for
each 32-bit process Up to 3 GB with
IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE
and 4GT

"How 4GT Works"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...75(WS.10).aspx

The /3GB boot.ini switch, changes the split between kernel and
user space virtual addresses. In my experiments here, I wasn't
able to get anything useful from it. I didn't have any large
address aware applications at the time. Other applications I had,
still had the 2GB limit, because they weren't large address aware.

"Available switch options for the Windows XP boot.ini"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833721

"/3GB

This switch forces x86-based systems to allocate 3 GB of virtual
address space to programs and 1 GB to the kernel and to executive
components. A program must be designed to take advantage of the
additional memory address space. With this switch, user mode
programs can access 3 GB of memory instead of the usual 2 GB
that Windows allocates to user mode programs. The switch moves
the starting point of kernel memory to 3 GB."

If you switch to a 64 bit OS, (almost) all your problems will
be solved. Don't buy WinXP x64, as that one is "half finished".
Read the reviews about WinXP x64, before even thinking about
buying it. Later 64 bit versions of OSes, may work better.
So if you really feel the need to access every byte of
your 4GB of memory, it'll cost you a new OS.

(Customer Reviews for Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116378

If I was doing testing here, this is the configuration I would use
with my copy of WinXP x32.

1) Install 4GB physical memory.

2) Remove honking big PCI Express video card(s). Then, I'd install
my FX5200 PCI video card with only 128MB of memory on board.
This would make around 3.5GB of system memory addressable by
the hardware decoder. With its tiny onboard memory, this video
card uses less bus address space.

3) Turn on the /3GB switch.

4) Test with a large address aware application. With luck,
I see somewhere between 2GB and 3GB of memory allocated
to that single application.

HTH,
Paul

On 5/15/2010 12:38 PM, Paul wrote:
coltrane wrote:
this might be more of a generic mainboard question but that group
doesn't seem active.
I have an asus p7p55d-e mb running windows xp. I have 2 G.Skill 2GB
sticks. Sandra correctly shows 2 X 2GB, but when I view the amount of
memory in the system properties window it shows 2.99 GB.
I have also run RightMark Memory Stability test and that shows 2047GB
total memory with available physical of 2047GB.
so my question is where did my memory go ( too young for Alzheimers! )


thanks
john

First, let's start with the hardware. Processors/chipsets, with a working
PAE implementation, support 36 bit or more addressing. That allows a
mapping from a 4GB virtual space (32 bit virtual address), to a much larger
physical address. That makes it possible, for a 32 bit OS, to support
more than 4GB of memory. You could support 64GB this way.

32 bit virtual --- page_tables and translation --- 36 bit physical

Microsoft has PAE turned on for other reasons. But in doing so, they
chose not to support more than 4GB physically. It helps them
separate their more expensive server OS products, from a desktop
products. We wouldn't want businesses running their servers, with
a $99 copy of WinXP Home :-)

http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer....nse/memory.htm


From the 4GB of physical addresses Microsoft gives you, you need
address space
for things like the video card. So that comes out of the address space
limit first. The remaining space, after all busses have addresses assigned,
is available to address memory.

Right now, you have 4GB physical memory installed, but roughly 1.01GB
of that memory, there is no way to get to it. No address generated
by the processor, is currently able to trigger an access to those
1.01GB of locations. It is like building houses in the middle of
no-where, with no "streets" to get to the houses.

If you used some other 32 bit OS, with a working PAE implementation,
you may be able to access more of the memory.

*******

With regard to single process and maximum memory usage, there are
a couple limits there. The kernel/user space split must be adjusted,
to make more of the memory available. The RightMark program must be
compiled to be large address aware, to use more than 2GB. So you probably
need to change something in boot.ini, to allow the RightMark program to
use more memory.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...78(VS.85).aspx

Memory type Limit in 32-bit Windows

User-mode virtual 2 GB
address space for
each 32-bit process Up to 3 GB with
IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE
and 4GT

"How 4GT Works"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...75(WS.10).aspx

The /3GB boot.ini switch, changes the split between kernel and
user space virtual addresses. In my experiments here, I wasn't
able to get anything useful from it. I didn't have any large
address aware applications at the time. Other applications I had,
still had the 2GB limit, because they weren't large address aware.

"Available switch options for the Windows XP boot.ini"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833721

"/3GB

This switch forces x86-based systems to allocate 3 GB of virtual
address space to programs and 1 GB to the kernel and to executive
components. A program must be designed to take advantage of the
additional memory address space. With this switch, user mode
programs can access 3 GB of memory instead of the usual 2 GB
that Windows allocates to user mode programs. The switch moves
the starting point of kernel memory to 3 GB."

If you switch to a 64 bit OS, (almost) all your problems will
be solved. Don't buy WinXP x64, as that one is "half finished".
Read the reviews about WinXP x64, before even thinking about
buying it. Later 64 bit versions of OSes, may work better.
So if you really feel the need to access every byte of
your 4GB of memory, it'll cost you a new OS.

(Customer Reviews for Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116378

If I was doing testing here, this is the configuration I would use
with my copy of WinXP x32.

1) Install 4GB physical memory.

2) Remove honking big PCI Express video card(s). Then, I'd install
my FX5200 PCI video card with only 128MB of memory on board.
This would make around 3.5GB of system memory addressable by
the hardware decoder. With its tiny onboard memory, this video
card uses less bus address space.

3) Turn on the /3GB switch.

4) Test with a large address aware application. With luck,
I see somewhere between 2GB and 3GB of memory allocated
to that single application.

HTH,
Paul
sure glad I paid for 4gb thinking I would get better performance.
I'd switch to Windows7 x64 but the driver/software compatibility would
be a nightmare. My work is all windows based so I can't move to a flavor
of linux.
I remember the issue of video card memory space from 35 years ago. I
thought that problem would have been addressed by now.
Actually my video memory is 256mb. I have an NVidia Geforce 8500GT.

ARGH!

thanks for the help (again)

john

In article , coltrane wrote:
On 5/15/2010 12:38 PM, Paul wrote:
coltrane wrote:
this might be more of a generic mainboard question but that group
doesn't seem active.
I have an asus p7p55d-e mb running windows xp. I have 2 G.Skill 2GB
sticks. Sandra correctly shows 2 X 2GB, but when I view the amount of
memory in the system properties window it shows 2.99 GB.
I have also run RightMark Memory Stability test and that shows 2047GB
total memory with available physical of 2047GB.
so my question is where did my memory go ( too young for Alzheimers! )


thanks
john

First, let's start with the hardware. Processors/chipsets, with a working
PAE implementation, support 36 bit or more addressing. That allows a
mapping from a 4GB virtual space (32 bit virtual address), to a much larger
physical address. That makes it possible, for a 32 bit OS, to support
more than 4GB of memory. You could support 64GB this way.

32 bit virtual --- page_tables and translation --- 36 bit physical

Microsoft has PAE turned on for other reasons. But in doing so, they
chose not to support more than 4GB physically. It helps them
separate their more expensive server OS products, from a desktop
products. We wouldn't want businesses running their servers, with
a $99 copy of WinXP Home :-)

http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer....nse/memory.htm


From the 4GB of physical addresses Microsoft gives you, you need
address space
for things like the video card. So that comes out of the address space
limit first. The remaining space, after all busses have addresses assigned,
is available to address memory.

Right now, you have 4GB physical memory installed, but roughly 1.01GB
of that memory, there is no way to get to it. No address generated
by the processor, is currently able to trigger an access to those
1.01GB of locations. It is like building houses in the middle of
no-where, with no "streets" to get to the houses.

If you used some other 32 bit OS, with a working PAE implementation,
you may be able to access more of the memory.

*******

With regard to single process and maximum memory usage, there are
a couple limits there. The kernel/user space split must be adjusted,
to make more of the memory available. The RightMark program must be
compiled to be large address aware, to use more than 2GB. So you probably
need to change something in boot.ini, to allow the RightMark program to
use more memory.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...78(VS.85).aspx

Memory type Limit in 32-bit Windows

User-mode virtual 2 GB
address space for
each 32-bit process Up to 3 GB with
IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE
and 4GT

"How 4GT Works"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...75(WS.10).aspx

The /3GB boot.ini switch, changes the split between kernel and
user space virtual addresses. In my experiments here, I wasn't
able to get anything useful from it. I didn't have any large
address aware applications at the time. Other applications I had,
still had the 2GB limit, because they weren't large address aware.

"Available switch options for the Windows XP boot.ini"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833721

"/3GB

This switch forces x86-based systems to allocate 3 GB of virtual
address space to programs and 1 GB to the kernel and to executive
components. A program must be designed to take advantage of the
additional memory address space. With this switch, user mode
programs can access 3 GB of memory instead of the usual 2 GB
that Windows allocates to user mode programs. The switch moves
the starting point of kernel memory to 3 GB."

If you switch to a 64 bit OS, (almost) all your problems will
be solved. Don't buy WinXP x64, as that one is "half finished".
Read the reviews about WinXP x64, before even thinking about
buying it. Later 64 bit versions of OSes, may work better.
So if you really feel the need to access every byte of
your 4GB of memory, it'll cost you a new OS.

(Customer Reviews for Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116378

If I was doing testing here, this is the configuration I would use
with my copy of WinXP x32.

1) Install 4GB physical memory.

2) Remove honking big PCI Express video card(s). Then, I'd install
my FX5200 PCI video card with only 128MB of memory on board.
This would make around 3.5GB of system memory addressable by
the hardware decoder. With its tiny onboard memory, this video
card uses less bus address space.

3) Turn on the /3GB switch.

4) Test with a large address aware application. With luck,
I see somewhere between 2GB and 3GB of memory allocated
to that single application.

HTH,
Paul
sure glad I paid for 4gb thinking I would get better performance.
I'd switch to Windows7 x64 but the driver/software compatibility would
be a nightmare. My work is all windows based so I can't move to a flavor
of linux.
I remember the issue of video card memory space from 35 years ago. I
thought that problem would have been addressed by now.
Actually my video memory is 256mb. I have an NVidia Geforce 8500GT.

ARGH!

thanks for the help (again)

john

Go into your bios setup and under advanced, look for the setting,
MEMORY REMAP FEATURE.
If its enabled, choose disbled and try that to see if you get About 3GB
memory showing up available.

If its disabled currently, try enabling it and see what you get.

Something in your system is likely limiting you to 32-bit operation
(most likely either the CPU or the OS). This is 4GB. But the hardware
REQUIRES some memory space, which means that all of the 4GB of memory
space cannot be occupied by RAM memory; some of it is used by other
devices (BIOS, motherboard, sound card, network card, video card). You
show what's left, and perhaps only the part of what's left that is
contiguous from address zero to the first address used by any hardware
device. Which is normally about 3GB.

The only way to get more is to use a 64-bit system. In particular that
means a 64-bit CPU (most are) and a 64-bit OS (most are not).

Now, that said, note that:

1. If you go the 64 bit route, expect some compatibility issues.
Possibly very serious and not resolveable.

2. If you go the 64-bit route, DO NOT expect to see any benefits; for
most people, 3GB of RAM is more than they need. Are there exceptions?
Sure, lots of them (and more everyday). BUT, that doesn't change the
fact that for probably more than 80% of people, there is no real benefit
to a 64 bit system with more than 3GB of available RAM memory.




coltrane wrote:
this might be more of a generic mainboard question but that group
doesn't seem active.
I have an asus p7p55d-e mb running windows xp. I have 2 G.Skill 2GB
sticks. Sandra correctly shows 2 X 2GB, but when I view the amount of
memory in the system properties window it shows 2.99 GB.
I have also run RightMark Memory Stability test and that shows 2047GB
total memory with available physical of 2047GB.
so my question is where did my memory go ( too young for Alzheimers! )


thanks
john

On 5/15/2010 4:10 PM, Barry Watzman wrote:
Something in your system is likely limiting you to 32-bit operation
(most likely either the CPU or the OS). This is 4GB. But the hardware
REQUIRES some memory space, which means that all of the 4GB of memory
space cannot be occupied by RAM memory; some of it is used by other
devices (BIOS, motherboard, sound card, network card, video card). You
show what's left, and perhaps only the part of what's left that is
contiguous from address zero to the first address used by any hardware
device. Which is normally about 3GB.

The only way to get more is to use a 64-bit system. In particular that
means a 64-bit CPU (most are) and a 64-bit OS (most are not).

Now, that said, note that:

1. If you go the 64 bit route, expect some compatibility issues.
Possibly very serious and not resolveable.

2. If you go the 64-bit route, DO NOT expect to see any benefits; for
most people, 3GB of RAM is more than they need. Are there exceptions?
Sure, lots of them (and more everyday). BUT, that doesn't change the
fact that for probably more than 80% of people, there is no real benefit
to a 64 bit system with more than 3GB of available RAM memory.




coltrane wrote:
this might be more of a generic mainboard question but that group
doesn't seem active.
I have an asus p7p55d-e mb running windows xp. I have 2 G.Skill 2GB
sticks. Sandra correctly shows 2 X 2GB, but when I view the amount of
memory in the system properties window it shows 2.99 GB.
I have also run RightMark Memory Stability test and that shows 2047GB
total memory with available physical of 2047GB.
so my question is where did my memory go ( too young for Alzheimers! )


thanks
john
thanks, I would like to run a test version of oracle on my system which
eats a lot of resources
john

In message coltrane
was claimed to have wrote:

I remember the issue of video card memory space from 35 years ago. I
thought that problem would have been addressed by now.

It has been addressed, it's called x64.

Resource may, but does not automatically, = memory.

I don't know if it's an application that would particularly benefit from
a "lot" of memory or not. It may well be.


coltrane wrote:

thanks, I would like to run a test version of oracle on my system which
eats a lot of resources
john

"coltrane" wrote in message
...
On 5/15/2010 4:10 PM, Barry Watzman wrote:
Something in your system is likely limiting you to 32-bit operation
(most likely either the CPU or the OS). This is 4GB. But the hardware
REQUIRES some memory space, which means that all of the 4GB of memory
space cannot be occupied by RAM memory; some of it is used by other
devices (BIOS, motherboard, sound card, network card, video card). You
show what's left, and perhaps only the part of what's left that is
contiguous from address zero to the first address used by any hardware
device. Which is normally about 3GB.

The only way to get more is to use a 64-bit system. In particular that
means a 64-bit CPU (most are) and a 64-bit OS (most are not).

Now, that said, note that:

1. If you go the 64 bit route, expect some compatibility issues.
Possibly very serious and not resolveable.

2. If you go the 64-bit route, DO NOT expect to see any benefits; for
most people, 3GB of RAM is more than they need. Are there exceptions?
Sure, lots of them (and more everyday). BUT, that doesn't change the
fact that for probably more than 80% of people, there is no real benefit
to a 64 bit system with more than 3GB of available RAM memory.




coltrane wrote:
this might be more of a generic mainboard question but that group
doesn't seem active.
I have an asus p7p55d-e mb running windows xp. I have 2 G.Skill 2GB
sticks. Sandra correctly shows 2 X 2GB, but when I view the amount of
memory in the system properties window it shows 2.99 GB.
I have also run RightMark Memory Stability test and that shows 2047GB
total memory with available physical of 2047GB.
so my question is where did my memory go ( too young for Alzheimers! )


thanks
john
thanks, I would like to run a test version of oracle on my system which
eats a lot of resources
john

Database performance is often more disk access speed dependent than
on available RAM. If you only have one physical hard disk, adding a
second one would probably help. Even better would be a striping RAID
disk subsystem, but there's a lot involved in setting that up properly.
You could use RAID 0 for testing purposes, or 4 drives in RAID 10
for data integrity in case of a drive failure. Your motherboard can
support these modes.
I use a P6TD deluxe with 2xSSD in RAID0 as system drive and 4x2TB
in RAID10 as data drives under Win7 x64. I can tell you that performance
is stunning, but it didn't come cheap, unfortunately.
32-bit applications running in emulation mode under the 64-bit environment
do seem to have more memory available than the usual 3.x GB than 32-bit
XP let them access.
HTH,
--
Rob

I have to setup the Windows 7 64-bit system.

'This one.' (http://tinyurl.com/2499hqh)




--
android2