Missing 1GB of RAM

[sarah_louise]

A recent purchase of a Dell 9200 with 4 GB of RAM reports this present in the BIOS screens but within Vista (32bit) it is reported as 3 GB of RAM.
I expect that this a feature of Vista being unable to use more than 3 GB so have I wasted money ?

[plowter]

Many CPUs can't address the full 4Gb on memory on Vista 32-bit. Think the technical speak is that the chips don't support Physical Address Extension above 3.2Gb. The remaining memory is used for system devices.

Check the Dell website to see is there are updated drivers for your machine.

[fo3nix]

plowter's correct.

You'll need a 64-bit system to address the 4GB and above. This means 64-bit software (you probably don't have 64-bit Vista because it's terrible, worse than 32-bit), as well as a 64-bit chipset like the Santa Rosa one from Intel.

So yes, unless you are running a 64-bit system, the extra RAM is wasted, for all intents and purposes.

[ACtheTROLL]

not quite true

if you fit 4Gb - you'll get 2814Mb available to the OS.
Your BIOS however WILL detect the extra RAM and shifts everything it can into that space..... so your machine runs with very little disc activity
so you will get a slight system improvement ... (MESH Chillblast etc are now fitting 4Gb) - but Fo3nix is right ... the increase is slight (but measurable) - and it will actually slow down the boot process .. but increase perf from then on.

The other side of the coin is that 64 bit OS will use all the RAM ... but there are fewer progs that can run in 64 bit mode ... so while the machine is faster ... not many progs can play ... and many games won't even open.

[sarah_louise]

Thanks to all....now I understand.