As you all know serv. pack 1 for vista magically starts seeing 4 gigs of ram for the 32 bit system. This is just some junk that windows did to cool down all of the hot heads that would just be calmed by seeing 4 gigs on there system info (that is for there os). Ok first you need to go to start task manager (ctrl + alt + Delete) and from there performance. This is where you see that windows 32 bit still only recognizes only around 3. something gigs.... still.

Hi..

hope you will be f9. the same problem i faced in windows vista bt with builten vga... then i go in bios and decrease the memroy share for vga.. then it will okay...
bt the windows vista share automatic to Graphics and you ram will decreas. if you want to know.
then just wirte in run dxdiag.
then select display.. you wil know that how much mb of ram share to vga....
i have find the solution for builten vga. not for unbuilten...
thank you..

OMG you should not be tampering with your pc, as you have probably already figured out. Coming to a discussion board and using terms in the context that YOU have indicates you are either kidding around, or you have no idea as to what is RAM, what is downloading, and what is upgrading. Vista will definitely be slow due to your specs, and due to the fact that its not a clean install, but an upgrade, (most may consider it a downgrade still).

BTW that .nba file is a nero backup file which may be worthless outside xp...
i would suggest you upgrade to XP fro the best possible user experience.

Hi Annie,

first you have to make understand what is RAM,
so RAM is not a soft thing, it is a physical hardware part, so you can't download it from the internet and install.
what you have to do is buy a RAM card and plug it into your motherboard of the PC.
And before you going to buy, make sure that your mother board support up to 3 GB RAM and what kind of RAM slot it has, (at the moment there are 2 famous slots which DDR1 and DDR2)
if your mother board does not support up to 3 GB, then you have to buy a mother board too.

And then as i know, Vista do not give you the option for intall the OS if you don't have atleast 512 MB of RAM.
when you try to intall with RAM lower than that, vista says can't install.
so i don't know how did you install Vista ultimate on your PC with 478 MB ram. (maybe you have 512 RAM ans it's share little amount with shared VGA).

so my feel is, do not intall the vista without having atleast 1 GB of ram,
if so you will get very slow performances and you will not be able to run lot of 3rd party application software.
so in your case you better install XP back, with a clean install.

Hope this information will help you.

Wth? you cant download RAM its hardware:P silly billy

For information on why 32 bit operating systems don't see all of the 4Gb of RAM or more you may have installed read http://www.kingcomputer.com.au/blog/?p=241

I had the almost same problem.

first i got a PC with config of,

2.2 duo core processor,
4 GB RAM,
256 on board VGA and
Vista Ultimate 32 bit

and my vista showed my ram as 3.5 GB

then I upgraded my VGA to nvidia 9500 GT 1 GB and after i intall that VGA card my vista start to show only 3.2 GB or RAM.
And then i installed the vista SP1 and now my vista show total 4 GB of RAM but performance same as when it shows 3.2

so what i'm thinking is vista SP1 only show 4 GB of ram, but it don't use total 4 GB RAM.
so 4 GB is cool if you are using 64 bit OS, if you use 32 bit, go for 3 GB so it won't waste your money i guess.

The 2.8GB reported is really about 3GB with some lost overhead for wsome IO device. The other 1GB is your dual 512MB video cards.

Remember that the 4GB limit in a 32bit OS is the memory MAP, not the physical RAM.

As has been stated correctly a couple of times in this thread, the map includes all of the device memory and then includes your physical RAM ... up to 4GB total.

Read message 22...

if your vista sees only 2.8-2.9GB, it's beacause your system adresses 4GB of memory, starting by the memory installed on various devices you use. Your dual vid cards have a good 1GB memory, and that one is adressed before the system memory (otherwise, you'd have no display) just that brings down to 3GB the total amount of memory your windows can see.

It's not just windows, it's a 32bit limitation, and those OS who do see more simply don't use 32bit adressing

"Is it me or do half the people posting here there Grammer just fails"

Are you sure you aren't referring about yourself with that comment?

A 32 bit operating system can only ever use a total 4gigs of memory, addressable memory . But you have to minus the memory used for things like a graphics cards and other smaller things, whats left over is used as the system memory, what you see in device manager. so if you install 4 giggs of ram and a 512 graphics card you will only have 3.5 gigs of system memory (4096-512), so that other 512 of ram cannot be addressed by the operating system, simply put it cant see more than 4 gig. so if you want more available system ram 64 bit is the way, up to 16 exbibytes!

Kind sir, please check your own grammar before criticizing other people

Hey Mr English Major! Before you jump on others ability to write, you might want to look up the difference between 'there' and 'their'.

"grammer"? gah...

Of cource Tru,
It is not an issue with your CPU,
If you are using any 32 bit OS, it won't detect all 4 GB, only 3 GB or 3.2 or like that.
so do not worry about your processor. If you really need to get your all 4 GB of RAM, try by installing 64 bit OS,
64 bit OS can address to huge abount of RAM.

Hope this will help you,
happy computing...

As my experience, you can remove 1 stick from a slot and no need to place 2 x 512 again.
just remove one RAM stick from a RAM slot. it will be fine. so you can work with 3 GB or RAM
and aslo it's okay to leave it like as it is now too.
it won't harm or show down your PC by leaving all 4 RAM sticks on the board.

I had an experience something same as yours, which is,
first i got a pc with 4 GB RAM and onboard 256 VGA,
and while i work with onboard VGA, my vista shows 3.2 as RAM.
and then I intalled a nvidia 9500 GT 1 GB VGA and then my vista start to show only 3 GB of RAM.
and then i was thinking what the heck is this happend and then i installed vista service pack 1.
voila, now my vista shows whole 4 GB of my RAM but performaces hasn't changed.(but games faster because of VGA)
that because vista only show 4 GB but 32 bit OS not address to whole 4 GB ram.

so try installing vista service pack 1 and see.

Good luck!

Yeah bperez, your crazy for spending that much on that computer you could have built that for probably half that cost

Considering the fact that where I live (Belgium) DDR3 ram is a lot more expensive then DDR2 I still do think u got ripped off. I got a basic system that I payed 20 euros to to upgrade. :p and its got a bit less then ur specs.

Whats funny is that PC will probably cost around $7000-8000 in 8-12 months.

What I wanna know is... whats the max ram/CPU % you've managed to get that thing to?

You must be doing some SERIOUS AutoCAD work, or some major movie company must pay you to render their 3d animations.

All well... We live in a world of wastefulness.. what should I expect.


My PC Specs:
Core 2 Duo 3.0ghz (Overclocked to 3.6ghz)
4 gigs of 1033mhz DDR2
256mb nvidia Geforce 9800 GT. (Also overclocked)

These upgrades cost me $400 canadian. $14000 for a computer? *COUGH* wow..
Best part is.. I work with Photoshop and 3dstudio max alot, and I've YET to max my Cpu/Ram...


Also, to all the people who have a 1 gig video card, (or two 512mb). The only thing you need THAT much video memory for is AutoCAD. Games cannot make use of that much video memory. You are better off getting a 256mb or 512mb that has a very fast Core/Memory Speed.