# Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM? **URL:** \ **Category:** blog\ **Created:** [March 8, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604 "2007-03-08T00:00:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3

**Author:** ![KevinT](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/k/f14d63/32.png) [@KevinT](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/KevinT)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/41 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

I’m in the same boat as Graham, well not exactly, I can’t even find all the proper drivers for 32 bit Vista. So it’s a waiting game to first get all the necessary drivers for my hardware then for the applications I require to be compatible. ---

**Author:** ![RabidW1](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RabidW1](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/RabidW1)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/42 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

Nobody will ever need more than 4 X 10^24 exabytes of memory… Gee, I wonder what the equivalent neural capacity of the brain is… Oops, were comparing apples to kiwis, or should I say analog to digital. If there is one thing that I’ve learned, if you offer more hardware capacity it will be used. “Is your name Sahra O’Conner?” ---

**Author:** ![Eugen\_Leitl](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/e/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Eugen\_Leitl](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/Eugen_Leitl)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/43 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

Here’s a nickel, kid. Go buy yourself a real computer. nitrogen:~# cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 4051648 kB MemFree: 66600 kB Buffers: 360016 kB Cached: 2215200 kB SwapCached: 12 kB Active: 818808 kB Inactive: 2175504 kB HighTotal: 0 kB HighFree: 0 kB LowTotal: 4051648 kB LowFree: 66600 kB SwapTotal: 9823672 kB SwapFree: 9823244 kB Dirty: 272 kB Writeback: 0 kB Mapped: 449972 kB Slab: 970272 kB CommitLimit: 11849496 kB Committed\_AS: 799204 kB PageTables: 4424 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 5024 kB VmallocChunk: 34359733327 kB ---

**Author:** ![Sean](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sean](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/Sean)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/44 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

I ran into the exact same problem on my Vista 32-bit box… the memory showed up properly in the BIOS, but not in System Information. It turns out that Microsoft recently released a KB article to describe the problem (although they didn’t go into the level of depth that you did… great job!) [http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/en-us](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/en-us) The system memory that is reported in the System Information dialog box in Windows Vista is less than you expect if 4 GB of RAM is installed ---

**Author:** ![PL19](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/p/b5a626/32.png) [@PL19](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/PL19)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/45 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

Ian, what 64 bit chipset uses 32 bit addressing ? That is by definition not a 64 bit chipset then, sounds very strange to me but it wouldn’t suprise me if you are correct that some do (probably Intel). Go with AMD64 which was the orginal inventor of the EM64 extensions that Intel then “stole” (yes I know they can with the patent agreement from -94) and you’ll most likely be safe from such issues. As for the prople coming here posting some printouts from various \*nix systems, you really need to read the article again, this is NOT a Windows issue, my good, you are embarrasing. ---

**Author:** ![Matt](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@Matt](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/Matt)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/46 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

I’m currently running an Intel Core Duo that is about a year old and it simply isn’t x64 capable. This is in response to the poster who “wished Microsoft had only released an x64 version of Vista”. They would have left a lot of us out in the cold. With that said, you can see why many hardware manufacturers haven’t been too quick to come on board. x64 Win XP has only been used by a select few to date because you would have had to buy fairly high end processors to even run it. Only now are mass consumers finally being offered processors that can support the x64 OS’s (at least for Intel). ---

**Author:** ![David\_H](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@David\_H](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/David_H)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/47 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

bah, Eugene, here’s a _real_ system: root@/proc# cat cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor\_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 6 model name : Intel Celeron (“GenuineIntel” 686-class, 128KB L2 cache) stepping : 5 cpu MHz : 501 fdiv\_bug : no fpu : yes fpu\_exception: : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr root@/proc# cat meminfo total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached: Mem: 257118208 62099456 195018752 0 0 0 Swap: 511995904 0 511995904 MemTotal: 251092 kB MemFree: 190448 kB MemShared: 0 kB Buffers: 0 kB Cached: 0 kB SwapTotal: 499996 kB SwapFree: 499996 kB cat: meminfo: Invalid argument ---

**Author:** ![TM143](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@TM143](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/TM143)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/48 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

“Could be raining!” I just watched that movie last night, and I read this blog post directly afterwords. What are the odds? ---

**Author:** ![ElliottB](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/e/b9e5f3/32.png) [@ElliottB](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/ElliottB)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/49 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

You know what’s funny? I am running 4GB of physical RAM on 64bit hardware, but I don’t have a 64-bit version of my O/S. I really should upgrade, but since I get to see 3.4 GB of it anyway, there’s not much incentive… ---

**Author:** ![GrahamStw](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/g/b5ac83/32.png) [@GrahamStw](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/GrahamStw)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/50 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

Matt, I disagree that only now are consumers getting x64 CPUs. Athlon64s have been available since late 2003. I built my current PC in September 2005 and I specced it with an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ which wasn’t unusually expensive or “high-end” even back then. Look at a major manufacturer like Dell and even some of the cheapest amd most basic systems they offer use 64-bit capable CPUs. Okay, perhaps it is too much to expect Microsoft to exclude 32-bit completely, but why is it the default? It currently isn’t possible to buy a retail version of Vista 64. Instead you buy the 32-bit version and then follow the instructions inside to send off for the 64-bit one! Given my experiences with XP x64, I don’t find that approach very comforting. ---

**Author:** ![Jae](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/j/3bc359/32.png) [@Jae](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/Jae)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/51 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

On the whole 64-bit / x86 that was mentioned earlier in the comments… I avoided 64-bit carefully for a number of reasons. First, X32 is the supported standard, and I knew that Intel was coming out with multi-core processors. I figured, and I think I may have figured correctly, that people were going to be more willing to figure out multi-threading than they were going to be willing to figure out X64 architecture. I sort of saw this coming when Apple began releasing dual-processor G5s several years ago. Much as I think the whole concept of “more processors equals better computer” argument is rather silly, it is the way the industry tends to trend. I mean, it took years for all the die-hard Apple fans to swap from Motorola to PowerPC chipsets, and they only did that because they more or less had to for speed purposes. Apple continued to support FAT applications right up the the release of OS X. To this point, most PCs since the industry really got off the ground with the 8086 have all been based on that exact architecture. S’why we call 'em X86. Of course, I never knew if “286” was short-hand for 8286, or if it literally went 8086, 268, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium 4, Intel Core Duo, etc. I’m sure I’ve missed one or two iterations in there. I’m hoping they’re going to have the quad-cores available for purchase this summer when I’ll be trolling for yet another new computer. If they don’t, I’ll probably just max out a dual core system. It’s something, anyway. ---

**Author:** ![LS11](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@LS11](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/LS11)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/52 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

@Josh, Last I checked, the machine addresses memory in bytes, not bits… ---

I did have a point in there: adoption will be slow, but it WILL happen, eventually. My curiosity is that since I never really studied 64-bit, what is its relationship to X86? ---

**Author:** ![Chris\_Nahr](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/c/48db29/32.png) [@Chris\_Nahr](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/Chris_Nahr)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/54 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

Ian, using /PAE to address memory 4 GB on 32-bit systems has its own problematic issues, according to Microsoft. There’s a performance penalty because I/O requests from 32-bit devices must be double-buffered, and some devices might not work at all, depending on the driver. I wouldn’t want to recommend THAT to a general audience, either! ---

**Author:** ![Factory](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/f/4af34b/32.png) [@Factory](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/Factory)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/55 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

"Ian, what 64 bit chipset uses 32 bit addressing ? That is by definition not a 64 bit chipset then, sounds very strange to me but it wouldn’t suprise me if you are correct that some do (probably Intel)." By the logic of the chipset/motherboard manufacturers supporting stuff that customers are unlikely to use is pointless, and thus it’s unusual for motherboards to support the full address range of the CPUs they have. After all how many customers are going to have more than 2gb of memory? ---

**Author:** ![Ludo](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/l/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Ludo](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/Ludo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/56 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

@Brandon: I didn’t say Apple is(n’t) 64bit. I was replying to your statement saying Apple’s “behind the times technology-wise” - I even said that was what I was replying to. If any mainstream OS is behind the times technology-wise, it’s obviously Microsoft’s. ---

Okay, I just checked… my XP SP2 Pro system has PAE enabled (comes automatically with DEP). So for shits and giggles I enabled memory remapping in the BIOS and rebooted Windows. I know from MemTest that 2 out of my 4 gigs will now appear in the 4-6 GB range. Yet Windows tells me that it has only 2 GB total! Total available memory, according to Task Manager: 6 GB = 2 GB RAM + 4 GB page file. Exactly where is that magical PAE memory supposed to appear? ---

**Author:** ![CharlesK](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/c/3ab097/32.png) [@CharlesK](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/CharlesK)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/58 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

Mac Pro handles up to 16GB of RAM and 3TB of disk space. Two 3GHz 64-bit Dual-Core Intel Xeon “Woodcrest” processors. [http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html](http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html) And with Parallels, you can run Windows, Linux, and MacOS x at the same time. [http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Performance/Conceptual/ManagingMemory/Articles/AboutMemory.html](http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Performance/Conceptual/ManagingMemory/Articles/AboutMemory.html) ---

Charles: Mac OS has always been a little ahead of the curve in what sizes it will handle, both in RAM and Hard Drive capacity. I seem to recall Macs handling the GB threshold more easily than did PCs. ---

**Author:** ![Dave\_C](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Dave\_C](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/Dave_C)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604/60 "2007-03-09T00:00:00Z")

To be perfectly clear, this isn’t a Windows problem-- it’s an x86 hardware problem Indeed. The latest Intel Core Duo-based iMacs have the same issue. You can put 4GB in them, but they’ll never be able to use more than 3 GB. [Previous page](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604.md?page=2) [Next page](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/604.md?page=4)