Does anyone know if there is a patch or fix to remove the 3gb limit for RAM in window3s XP?

My new machine has a tasty 8 gig but due to XP's way of doing things, it only recognises 3gb

And before you say its a hardware issue, not it is not - BIOS recognises the full 8 gig and it is definately a windows XP issue.

Thanking you

 

XP is a 32-bit OS so its impossible for it to use more that 4Gb. You would have to use a 64bit verison like XP64 or Vista 64 to make use of all that memory. As you say its not hardware issue, its a software issue.

 

Arse

Would XP64 definately be able to handle the 8gig - It would make sence to go that route as I have a 64bit processor now too

 

Yes, i think the limit of XP64 is 128Gb.

There are some ways around the 4Gb limit on a 32bit system but it involves how the memory handling is programmed and on XP its not done in the way that it can handle any more.

If you look at this list you will see that some of the 32 bit systems can make us of memory above 4Gb.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx

 

not a dig or anything but 8GB for any home PC is wayyyyyyyyy OTT. Even 4GB is a bit much really. I used to run 1GB on XP and was fine. Then went to 2GB now got all four sticks run dual channel interleaved on 3GB and is probably as much as I will put in my PC. On my memory monitor the absolutely MAXIMUM it ever uses is about 49-50%

And edit I'm running Vista 64Bit which is an even bigger drain than XP is

 

Who cares if its overkill?

A 50" tv might be considered too much, but I call it futureproofing

Now, since you had no valuable contribution to my thread, please close the door behind you


Edited to say - I use a lot of memory and processor hungry programs - Autocad for design and development of my projects, video editing software for route learning dvd's I produce for work and various other stuff

 

Fair enough on the future proofing thing.

But DDR3 is out so all DDR2 motherboards will be useless eventually lol.

It isn't so much how much memory you have (up to a point that is: between 4GB and 8GB doesnt really make a HUGE amount of difference) but at how fast it runs. It would be better if you had a fast set of 4GB with very tight latency timings rather than a slack 8GB set.

Adn for all the video editing and autocad, its probably better to have a solid fast processor with a big cache as well as decent RAM

 

latest AMD64 processor (3.2 Ghz) and an Asus Crossfire motherboard with twin gigabyte crossfire 256bit gfx cards takes care of the program running speeds.

Just need bloody 64bit OS to take advantage of it all now

 

well, dont go for the 64 bit xp
as the drivers fr everything sucks as they dont exist.

try windows 2003 server
if you want a full support for you 8gb ram

or linux

 

Same CPU and motherboard as me, im using Vista Ultimate 64 which i obviously paid many pennies for

 

I would go for vista 64bit and turn off the paging files as you have 8GB Ram.

 

I got hold of XP64 - and fuck me, wish I hadn't of bothered now, what a piece of shit that is.

Don't get me wrong, it looks pretty, but as you sy, hardly any driver support, major major issues with it trying to recognise my HD audio (in other words, it won't) and I feel like I am pissing in the wind with it

Not to mention the numerous system hanging on startup and auto resetting after changing a driver setting

Someone tell me about Vista Ultimate 64 (Moonie?) via PM please?

 

Lol dunno how or why people have all these issues with XP64, i've never had any problems. Hardest driver to get was netgear wireless card. But found one eventually as Netgear don't support 64bit.

 

The only issue I am having is that it won't support the Raeltek HD Audio bus - which is strange, as it was designed with XP64/Vista64 in mind

Also the system hanging when booting after installing drivers - thats a pisser, and it has all the latest updates too for it


Ahh Well, Just have to get hold of Vista Ultimate 64 bit - thats going to cost a fortune

Another load of dosh to microshit

 

why dont you just get vista home premium 64? is what I have and runs smoothly no problems thus far and very impressed and happy with it.

 

i had nothing but problems with vista. bluescreening constantly. Checked every driver going. Updates decreased it but it still happened. On XP now and its fine

 

If XP64 is shit i would not bother with vista64 the 32 bit of vista is not the best

 

well touch wood mien has been going OK ever since a month ago when I installed it and I'm running an overclocked system. XP used to blue screen on me when I clocked it all the time.

Vista hasnt missed a beat and pleased with it so far.

 

I did have Vista 64Bit but Solidworks can't handles the vista aero package so i've had to go back to XP 64bit

 

Why not change the settings in vista for that windows "classic" look we all know and (sometimes) love

 

Lol may as well just stay with XP then because the Vista Classic look they tried to replicate is horrid lol.

 

I would stay with XP if it didn't dislike the audio drivers for the soundcard, didn't keep blue-screening when booting and other shit

 

I dont know what way you guys have installed vista or what hardware you run, but I never have any trouble with the system I built running vista. I run a Quad core 6600, gigabyte p35 mobo, 2GB 800mhz corsair ram and have the Hard Drives in a raid 0 configuration.

 

me too. was wondering what all the gyp was when people were saying vista is rubbish etc. had no problems AT ALL.

I think when you buy pre built systems you get the problems. when you do it yourself it seems to go down a lot better especially with a fresh oem copy

 

I'm new to this SATA drive business so not sure what "RAID 0" means above - cam someone explain please?

 

Raid 0 is striping (spliting data between 2 or more discs to increase read / write speeds), this is a technology you can use on ANY discs, whether these be IDE, SATA, SAS, FC etc etc,

Wont really make much difference the the average home user IMO, you just double your chances of loosing data.


Reference the 8GB, WHY WHY WHY?


What applications are you running that are going to make use of that memory?

Anything more then 2GB is overkill IMO


And driver support for Windows 64bit OS's is wank, your guna have exactly the same problems whether it be XP 64 or Vista 64,


Please dont take this the wrong way, but if you dont understand basic raid principles, and did'nt know about the 3.5gb (ish) limit on 32bit Windows, then it suggests to me that your just chasing numbers for pub chat

 

I've actually found that to be the complete opposite. Pre built systems get very few reports of problems (possibly because the users aren't experienced enough to know better), but home built systems have nothing but bother with them.

 

I knew about the 3 gig memory limit in the 32 bit system - I merely asked about a work around or if I needed to bin that and install the 64 bit edition.

RAID is something that I have never had an incline to delve into and probably never will


As for chasing numbers - I think not. - As said in my thread above, It is in the interests of video editing and production, autocad useage, 3d rendering and futureproofing. The machine is also a print-server for other computers in the network aswell so less strain on the CPU/Memory the better IMHO.

Thankyou for explaining the RAID funtionality in simple terms, but as I have already said in this reply, its something that I will never delve into.

 

nothing wrong with vista if all you do is browse the internet etc

its when you want to use older software that you get the problems games and apps

 

i'd just like to say ............i havn't got a clue wtf ur going on about.......i upped mine to 2gb (from 1gb) and it's fine (i copy a lot and down load).....works well but........i'm pretty p.c NUMB......thinkin' of going "dual core" but do i need it...#???

 

Raid would be of benefit to you if you do video editing, If its 1080p videos then I would def recommend a raid 0 setup. This will allow you to load and save large files quicker. This requires two hard drives of the same make(ideally) and size.

 

Thats fair enough then, in that case your options / work arounds are:


Firstly i would think there would be a way to get the soundcard working on a 64 bit OS, surly it can be done


Other then that...........


Stick with 32 bit windows and live with 3.5 ish GB

Move to a 64bit OS - Which would then lead onto accepting that your guna have driver problems, and do without things working, or buy new bits which you can get 64 bit drivers for.

Dual boot a 32bit and 64bit (whether it be Vista or XP, or one of each), having one set up everyday use (32 bit), with everything working, and 3.5gb still being enough 99% of the time, and then have a 64 bit set up for when your working on some editing or something. This would be really easy to set up, and effective for what you need, and would be pretty slick IMO.

The other option, and its not something i have really played around with, would be to install a 64bit OS, and then run a 32bit virtual machine, using VMware workstation or similar to get everything working, your pc would easily run a vitual machine, and then you can kill it when you wana get on with some editing.


I think personally i would dual boot it, 32bit for everyday use, and 64 bit for hardcore use.

 

Thanking you for the more information

The video editing is just for route learning DVD's for work (I film the route and then edit it into a dvd that gives more information than just a cabride dvd like the old route learning stuff we had) so its nothing major and definately not high-def

I'll give Vista 64 a blast and see how that goes, been doing a bit of research on it and it seems that it has a lot of support for drivers etc etc, almost as much as the 32bit flavour

Cheers again

 

a dual boot was something I was looking at and advised against because it wouldnt run as fast and you are doubling the amount of problems you create for yourself as they can conflict and also if one messes up chances are its going to take the other one with it.

personally I'd just run a 64 bit and leave it at that or get two hard drives and run a dual boot that way so you can pull the power cable out the drive you use only seldomly. I built my PC from scratch and installed Vista all on my own and running sweet as

 

Who ever told you that was simply understood sweet FA about how dual boot works or how the MBR works, not to mention disk partitions and page file.. these people should be forced to own a mac.
Such people also usually believe that dual channel memory exists and that the Intel EMT64 and AMD64 processors are true 64bit processors.

 

With that amount of ram and the need to do video editing given the I would use windows XP given the choices here and configure 5gigs of ram as a ram disk to crunch the data for the video editing as this would reduce overheads and demands on the disk io and increase performance as well.

What's the point of running a any Windows 64 OS when your running a majority of 32bit applications on it.. the performance is minimal and simply because the OS can address additional memory it does not mean the applications can. Personally speaking I would like my applications to make the most out of my system and do not care about the OS as this is nothing but a platform used to run my applications

I ultimately would use Linux myself

 

you can actually make windows use more memory but only a gig more or 4gig in total by enabling Physical Address Extension.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system...AE/PAEdrv.mspx

 

Just a quick update

Now running Vista 64 SP1 and it is amazing.

Got the visual setup I want (IE, looking like normalish windows instead of some fucked up crossbread between a mac and a pc) and the speed is amazing.

So far all my 32bit software has instaled backwards compatible and everything is running super smooth.

Even got a "windows compatibility score" of 5.5 - which should increase once my second gfx card arrives and is setup in "Crosshair" mode


Thanking you all for your advice and information - it was invaluable