Windows 7 4 GB RAM (3,17 Usable)

Ok so, I have a 32x bit Windows 7 Ultimate, and when I looked at the computer properties I saw that I could only use 3,17 GB. It's the same problem on my sisters laptop (which is a 64x bit). Any way to fix this? It's a HP PC btw

Specs:

Intel Core i3 2100 3.10 GHz (2 Cores , 4 Threads)
- Intel HD Graphics 2000 (1429 MB)

DirectX 10

4 GB RAM (3,17 GB usable)

Disk partition (C :451 GB Free (488 GB Total)
Disk partition (D : 443 GB Free (443 GB Total)


Windows 7 Ultimate (32x bit)
 

porterjw

Spaminator
Staff member
32-bit can only handle a max of 4GB and use 3.x of that. Guessing your sister also has 4 GB on her 64-bi?The OS will always use some amount of RAM even when you're not doing anything. If you add another 4 to yours you won't see any difference, but that same 4 added to hers and you'll see her usable jump to 7.x.
 

AlienMenace

Well-Known Member
32-bit OS can only handle 4 GB max and adding more ram is useless. It will not be able to use it, to use more than 4 GB. You would have to upgrade to a 64 bit OS. You also got to remember that of the 4 GB, the onboard graphics is taking up some of that memory. That is why it sees 3.17 or so.
 

digzu

New Member
What was said above plus some extra detail:

Usually, a 32-bit OS can only use approx. 3.83GB of RAM unless a physical address extension is used, though those typically lead to instability and you can’t allocate more than 3.83GB to an application anyway.

Alongside that your onboard graphics are using “shared memory” rather than its own “dedicated memory” so whatever is allocated for the graphics can’t be used for the system itself.

Most things are dropping native 32 bit support since the last few years, would be a lot more worthy to use a 64-bit OS to maintain compatibility with modern applications, and if needed run a 32-bit guest VM if some sort of legacy equipment you’re using (and I would assume so if you’re still on a 32-bit OS) isn’t compatible properly with x64.

32-bit can also be referred to as x86, x32 isn’t correct terminology, just a note to the OP :)


Oops. Didn’t notice this was nearly a month old...
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
What laptop does your sister have? Some crap like the 945GM chipset on a lot of C2D laptops could only address 32 bits of RAM addressing, so you'd see the same behavior when running 32 bit or 64 bit versions of windows (the 32 bit versions actually consume a little less when running the same applications).
 

OmniDyne

Active Member
What laptop does your sister have? Some crap like the 945GM chipset on a lot of C2D laptops could only address 32 bits of RAM addressing, so you'd see the same behavior when running 32 bit or 64 bit versions of windows (the 32 bit versions actually consume a little less when running the same applications).

Wow, interesting. Why is that?
 

digzu

New Member
What laptop does your sister have? Some crap like the 945GM chipset on a lot of C2D laptops could only address 32 bits of RAM addressing, so you'd see the same behavior when running 32 bit or 64 bit versions of windows (the 32 bit versions actually consume a little less when running the same applications).
Damn I thought that chipset is meant for netbooks :/
 
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