install w7 on 16gb of ram?

[Paul]

(...)

About a year ago this interested me a lot but i do suppose it depends on
the hardware as well.
Particular example:
Right now i am sitting at an elderly notebook with a DualCore Intel
T2230 mobile processor,
2x 2GB RAM are installed, the BIOS itself only reports 3GB, OS is Win7
Ultimate 32bit
In the BCDEDIT i forced both to enable DEP and PAE, the last lines of my
boot configuration read


nx AlwaysOn
pae ForceEnable


RightClicking on 'my computer' properties says that 4GB are installed
but only 3GB are usable.

Still i suppose that some of the 4th GB is used, at least for caching
the BIOS.

All my newer computers use Win7 x64 versions,
still the thing interests me.
Any sugestions how to make Win7 x86 use all 4GB memory even if the BIOS
only reports 3GB?

greetings

Roland Schweiger

The basic method for getting a Windows 32 bit to access more memory,
is described here.

http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm

If you're seeing only 3GB detected in the BIOS, that could be a Northbridge
design issue. Intel made at least one Northbridge, that had room to install
8GB of memory, but only provided address width in the design, to reach 4GB
of it. Intel said you could install 4x2GB DIMMs if you want, but it won't do
you any good in that case, because nothing can use them. 2x2GB, leaving the
other two DIMM slots empty, is the highest configuration allowed by the
hardware limitation.

Many other Intel chipsets are fully capable. They support memory remapping,
(to lift the 3GB to 4GB segment above the 4GB mark), and have 36 bit addressing
(for PAE), and that allows a 32 bit OS to support a larger memory space.
The Microsoft memory license is what prevents full usage on X86 (32 bit).

But if your BIOS only reports 3GB, then there is nothing more you can do.
The BIOS is responsible for defining the memory map, and programming
the chipset hardware decoders. If the BIOS claims no more than 3GB of
memory, then Windows should not be changing that.

Paul

 

[BillW50]

Try editing HD video, or simultaneously manipulating a few hundred
RAW images from the latest DSLRs (as one does in astrophotography)
and you soon find out!

Yes I tried that before and it is my recommendation is not to try it.
LOL Say wouldn't an 64-bit OS be better for these tasks anyway?

For web-browsing, email, wordprocessing, simple spreadsheets etc etc,
more memory would make little difference for most users, except
those who like to have 20 windows open at once..
Lots of folk also now run Virtual Machines and this is something
else that having bags of memory really helps with.

I've never seen the curiosity about virtual machines. Nor about dualboot
machines either. But then I surround myself with over a dozen computers
anyway, so that is probably why. Although I usually only have one or two
running at a time. And most of them uses 25 watts or less. ;-)

 

[Roland Schweiger]

If you're seeing only 3GB detected in the BIOS, that could be a Northbridge

design issue. Intel made at least one Northbridge, that had room to install
8GB of memory, but only provided address width in the design, to reach 4GB
of it. Intel said you could install 4x2GB DIMMs if you want, but it won't
do
you any good in that case, because nothing can use them. 2x2GB, leaving the

(...)

PC Wozard 2ß10 reports that the chipset is an
Intel i945PM (mobile) Chipset.
Same name for the Northbridge (although in a laptop north- and southbridge
are in the same chip i suppose)
Southbridge is reported as a
82801GBM ICH7 M/U

The laptop itself was of Manufacturer MEDION (MD 98000)
and it might be that this manufacturer slightly modified the chipset,
maybe because of shared graphics card or similar.

In any case, the BIOS only reports 3GB and this is definately the problem.
PC wizard (and Windows) tell me that 4GB are installed but only 3GB usable,
and this is neither due to PAE nor DEP.

Medion no longer supports the machine.

greetings

Roland Schweiger

 

[Paul]

(...)

PC Wozard 2ß10 reports that the chipset is an
Intel i945PM (mobile) Chipset.
Same name for the Northbridge (although in a laptop north- and
southbridge are in the same chip i suppose)
Southbridge is reported as a
82801GBM ICH7 M/U

The laptop itself was of Manufacturer MEDION (MD 98000)
and it might be that this manufacturer slightly modified the chipset,
maybe because of shared graphics card or similar.

In any case, the BIOS only reports 3GB and this is definately the problem.
PC wizard (and Windows) tell me that 4GB are installed but only 3GB usable,
and this is neither due to PAE nor DEP.

Medion no longer supports the machine.

greetings

Roland Schweiger

The 945PM datasheet, shows the FSB only has a 32 bit address. That means
total address space is limited to 4GB, minus room for system busses.

There is a figure on page 321 that shows the problem.

"Figure 10. System Address Ranges" - PDF page 321

http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/309219.pdf?wapkw=(309219)

In a quick scan, I don't see any mention of the kind of "remapping"
which exists on the chipsets that have 36 bit address busses.

*******

Now, compare that to the figure on PDF page 35 here.

"Figure 2. System Address Ranges"

http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/317610.pdf?wapkw=(317610)

That is an example of a chipset that handles remapping above 4GB
and makes it possible to use more of the memory (as long as you
have the right OS to do it). You'll need to rotate the PDF page
in Adobe Reader, to read the text. So your chipset is less capable,
and is causing the memory to go missing. The support is not there
to do otherwise.

Paul

 

[Roland Schweiger]

The 945PM datasheet, shows the FSB only has a 32 bit address. That means

total address space is limited to 4GB, minus room for system busses.

There is a figure on page 321 that shows the problem.

"Figure 10. System Address Ranges" - PDF page 321

In a quick scan, I don't see any mention of the kind of "remapping"
which exists on the chipsets that have 36 bit address busses.

Interesting, thanks for the info,
the laptop itself is no longer worth much
but this just interested me for curiosity and for learning.

Well i also quickly scenned the document and no mentioning of any memory
remapping (and no 36bit address bus).

Still i am wondering if Win7 uses the "fourth GB" in some way,
or will the PCI(e) devices ec. only show their ROM part of memory?

Particulary interesting on this machine is the onboared shared memory
graphics card
Nvidia GeForce Go 7400
because i wonderd if this card could 'grab' the fourth GB for its use.
But this does not seem to be the case and i still have the impression that
Medion made a slight change to the chipset
(and the video adapter).

greetings

Roland Schweiger

 

[charlie]

Yes I tried that before and it is my recommendation is not to try it.
LOL Say wouldn't an 64-bit OS be better for these tasks anyway?


I've never seen the curiosity about virtual machines. Nor about dualboot
machines either. But then I surround myself with over a dozen computers
anyway, so that is probably why. Although I usually only have one or two
running at a time. And most of them uses 25 watts or less. ;-)

Actually Win 7 32 is capable of using more RAM. Unfortunately, Microsoft
elected to "lock out" the capability. There is a complicated method to
change this, BUT - - Microsoft elected to implement the restriction as a
"license" restriction. The enable method involves windows "test mode"
the SDK, and several other things like BCDEdit.

With all done and working correctly, there is still a potential problem
with poorly written drivers that may occur.

 

[BillW50]

In

Actually Win 7 32 is capable of using more RAM. Unfortunately,
Microsoft elected to "lock out" the capability. There is a
complicated method to change this, BUT - - Microsoft elected to
implement the restriction as a "license" restriction. The enable
method involves windows "test mode" the SDK, and several other things
like BCDEdit.
With all done and working correctly, there is still a potential
problem with poorly written drivers that may occur.

Thanks Charlie. Here is some more information.

Physical Address Extension - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

 

[Peter Foldes]

I just upgraded my mobo to from asus A8N-E to an Crosshair-4 and ram from 4gb to
16gb. Now the previously installed w7 will no longer boot and I can't reinstall
it either, getting similar hardware problem messages in both cases, suggesting a
restart of the installation & a repair. That doesn't work either.

Is your OS 32 Bit or 64 Bit ?? If it is 32 then do not wonder any further. 32 Bit
does not support more than 4Gigs of Ram

--
Peter
Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[BillW50]

In

Is your OS 32 Bit or 64 Bit ?? If it is 32 then do not wonder any
further. 32 Bit does not support more than 4Gigs of Ram

Well some 32-bit Windows versions can. According to:

Physical Address Extension - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

Also the original release of XP could use more than 4GB. But it was
removed when SP1 was released. The reason why the 4GB limit was imposed
is because some third party drivers become unstable. But there are mods
to reenable higher than 4GB support if you want to go there. ;-)

 

[Paul]

Interesting, thanks for the info,
the laptop itself is no longer worth much
but this just interested me for curiosity and for learning.

Well i also quickly scenned the document and no mentioning of any memory
remapping (and no 36bit address bus).

Still i am wondering if Win7 uses the "fourth GB" in some way,
or will the PCI(e) devices ec. only show their ROM part of memory?

Particulary interesting on this machine is the onboared shared memory
graphics card
Nvidia GeForce Go 7400
because i wonderd if this card could 'grab' the fourth GB for its use.
But this does not seem to be the case and i still have the impression
that Medion made a slight change to the chipset
(and the video adapter).

greetings

Roland Schweiger

Since the processor to Northbridge interface is limited to 32 bits,
and the address takes one cycle, no more than 4GB of addresses can
be used.

Some of the addresses must be reserved to make it possible to access
system busses. The allocation granularity is 256MB or so. If you had
PCI bus and PCI Express bus, then it would be 256MB for each.

The addresses available for memory access, are whatever is left over.
If you install 4GB of physical RAM, then the rest of it is inaccessible.

If your GPU is UMA (shared memory type), that memory allocation would
come from the memory that exists (below 3GB range). Reducing the
allocation for your Go 7400, might make more memory available
for programs.

According to this, I see in the "Memory" section, that the GPU supports
local memory connected to the GPU. But it doesn't say what range
of memory sizes to expect. If the GPU has its own memory chips,
mapping that RAM comes from the PCI Express bus range. If the GPU
has 512MB of RAM, then the PCI Express bus allocation must be
bumped up by 2x256MB chunks.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/go_7_series_techspecs.html

You can always try GPUZ, to get some idea. GPUZ is a utility that
reports some information on the GPU chip.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/

(Example of GPUZ display)
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x204/havokie/gpu-z-1.jpg

If the chipset had a 36 bit address interface on it, many more things
would be possible. But this was Intel's decision. Intel even did this
to one of their desktop chipsets, so this "feature" is not for
laptops only. You can also find it on desktops.

Paul

 

[Tim Slattery]

Well some 32-bit Windows versions can. According to:

MS has enabled PAE on their server operating systems but not on their
client OSs.

 

[Paul]

MS has enabled PAE on their server operating systems but not on their
client OSs.

That's not true. PAE is enabled on 32 bit (client) OSes, to support the NX bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

"... add NX bit functionality"

"The NX bit is another flag in the page directory, in bit 63,
to mark pages as no execute."

"Windows XP SP2 and later, by default, on processors with the no-execute (NX)
or execute-disable (XD) feature, runs in PAE mode in order to allow NX."

Even though PAE is enabled, the OS is fixed so you can't go further than 4GB.

*******

An indirect proof of PAE, would be what happens when you use this.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

I've tested that product here. I installed 6GB of memory (2x2GB + 2x1GB sticks).
My Windows is WinXP SP3 Pro x32. I set up the RAM disk to 2GB. Windows reports
3.1GB free, while at the same time the RAM Disk is providing 2GB of storage
in RAM, a total of 5.1GB or so. The only way that can happen, is with a
capability like PAE. Somehow, that product is able to access memory
above 4GB, i.e. above the Windows memory license. And presumably that
is the case, because the memory being used is not holding program code.
So perhaps the restriction, is that read-only code segments can't go
above 4GB.

(Benchmarking the RAMDisk)
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8694/hdtunedataram2gbabove.gif

Now, to make further fun from that product, I loaded the page file onto
the RAM disk. I allocated most of the 2GB to be storage space for
a page file. Then, I started loading up programs past the 3.1GB mark.
The system behaved smooth as could be, and went into "swap country" without
a whimper.

That method, using RAMDisk above 4GB as pagefile, isn't without issues.
I had two "strange" things happen during the experiment, which lasted
four days, and returned the computer to a more normal configuration
afterwards. So the software wasn't completely bulletproof. I would
not recommend that setup for daily usage.

What impressed me about this experiment, is that the 4GB limit is
not immutable, while using your 32 bit Windows.

Paul

 

[charlie]

That's not true. PAE is enabled on 32 bit (client) OSes, to support the
NX bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

"... add NX bit functionality"

"The NX bit is another flag in the page directory, in bit 63,
to mark pages as no execute."

"Windows XP SP2 and later, by default, on processors with the no-execute
(NX)
or execute-disable (XD) feature, runs in PAE mode in order to allow NX."

Even though PAE is enabled, the OS is fixed so you can't go further than
4GB.

*******

An indirect proof of PAE, would be what happens when you use this.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

I've tested that product here. I installed 6GB of memory (2x2GB + 2x1GB
sticks).
My Windows is WinXP SP3 Pro x32. I set up the RAM disk to 2GB. Windows
reports
3.1GB free, while at the same time the RAM Disk is providing 2GB of storage
in RAM, a total of 5.1GB or so. The only way that can happen, is with a
capability like PAE. Somehow, that product is able to access memory
above 4GB, i.e. above the Windows memory license. And presumably that
is the case, because the memory being used is not holding program code.
So perhaps the restriction, is that read-only code segments can't go
above 4GB.

(Benchmarking the RAMDisk)
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8694/hdtunedataram2gbabove.gif

Now, to make further fun from that product, I loaded the page file onto
the RAM disk. I allocated most of the 2GB to be storage space for
a page file. Then, I started loading up programs past the 3.1GB mark.
The system behaved smooth as could be, and went into "swap country" without
a whimper.

That method, using RAMDisk above 4GB as pagefile, isn't without issues.
I had two "strange" things happen during the experiment, which lasted
four days, and returned the computer to a more normal configuration
afterwards. So the software wasn't completely bulletproof. I would
not recommend that setup for daily usage.

What impressed me about this experiment, is that the 4GB limit is
not immutable, while using your 32 bit Windows.

Paul

The reference below really, really should be read by anyone interested
in memory size vs win 7 32 & 64.

http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm

 

[BillW50]

In

The reference below really, really should be read by anyone interested
in memory size vs win 7 32 & 64.

http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm

Very interesting read Charlie. I knew about the original XP release had
no 4GB limit. Although this article makes it sound like Windows 2000 Pro
never imposed the 4GB limit with any SP.

 

[charlie]

In

Very interesting read Charlie. I knew about the original XP release had
no 4GB limit. Although this article makes it sound like Windows 2000 Pro
never imposed the 4GB limit with any SP.

Win 2k was (at the time) a quite differently marketed version than win
95, XP, etc. Perhaps that was the reason. Besides, very few if any
desktops had 4G of memory or more back then. Servers, maybe.

I really don't understand why the current limit exists, other than
perhaps to shift market share to the (expensive) server versions.

 

[BillW50]

Win 2k was (at the time) a quite differently marketed version than win
95, XP, etc. Perhaps that was the reason. Besides, very few if any
desktops had 4G of memory or more back then. Servers, maybe.

I really don't understand why the current limit exists, other than
perhaps to shift market share to the (expensive) server versions.

I dunno Charlie, but it would be my guess the demand for 32-bit Windows
to support more than 4GB has to almost nil. I completely understand say
XP users using 256MB or 512MB and wanting to use more RAM. As XP and
even surprisingly Windows 7 only needs 1GB for itself and can handle
some light duty tasks as well.

All of my computers here, none can have more than 4GB anyway. So I can't
even test any of this stuff over 4GB. And only 6 of them can go that
high. Another 6 of them can't go over 2GB. And none of my computers have
more than 2GB currently installed. And if it wasn't for 3D games, I
wouldn't need anymore than 1GB on any of my systems.

And I kind of think like Microsoft on this matter. If you are doing
tasks that 4GB just isn't enough, then 64-bit OS is probably the way to
go instead of trying to get a 32-bit OS to run higher.

I dunno Charlie, how do you think about this?

 

[Roland Schweiger]

You can always try GPUZ, to get some idea. GPUZ is a utility that

reports some information on the GPU chip.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/

Thanks .....

GPUZ unfortunately only reports the 64MB of its dedicated memory,
it does not report the 1GB it grabs from (below 3GB) of RAM.
The BIOS of the laptop does not allow me to make any changes here,
neither does the nVidia system control program.

greetings

Roland Schweiger

 

[Paul]

Thanks .....

GPUZ unfortunately only reports the 64MB of its dedicated memory,
it does not report the 1GB it grabs from (below 3GB) of RAM.
The BIOS of the laptop does not allow me to make any changes here,
neither does the nVidia system control program.

greetings

Roland Schweiger

GPU designs have changed over the years.

Older ones, with a BIOS setting, may have a static allocation. The
static allocation subtracts from free system memory. The GPU in
that case, doesn't have any local memory at all.

With your GPU, the local memory is always available, and the
UMA memory may be dynamically allocated. Some utility may
claim "up to 1GB available", but that memory is not used
until something like a 3D game is played. When you exit the
game, the dynamic memory allocation should be released.

These are examples of the newer technique.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbocache

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperMemory

If not gaming, you could see 3GB available.

If gaming, with a lot of textures, there would be 2GB for
programs and 1GB for textures.

There is a utility out there, which will display current video
memory consumption. I don't remember the name of it, but
it isn't GPU-Z. You can run that program, while a game
is loaded, alt-tab out of the game, and inspect the
details with the utility. (Another poster was reporting
game memory usage, so there is at least one utility that
does it. I just don't remember the name. Whether that
utility works under Windows 7, is a separate issue.)

Paul