Maximum Amount of ram in 32bit XP

[Michael172]

Without having the ram clocks changed. IIRC when i used 4gb of ddr2 400mhz it dropped the clocks to about 2-300mhz. Whats the maximum amount of ram i can have to keep the clock speeds ?


Thing is im getting sick of vista and the problems it causes.

 

[iain187]

some people say 3.25 or 3.5 but when i put 4gb in a 32bit pc it was more like 3.1xxx

a weird number anyway

 

[Millsy]

yeah around 3gb

 

[David]

wtf has that got to do with vista??

 

[Gally]

I would just like to add that I hate vista.

 

[iain187]

wtf has that got to do with vista??

one would assume he has vista, and although it can cope with 4gb of ram in it's 32bit flavour, it causes other problems which he would rather fix even if it means running 3GB RAM in XP

 

[Ads_172]

Worth changing to 64bit?

 

[Steve2004]

32bit Vista can handle 4GB RAM total, this includes memory and any video card memory.

So if you have 4gb RAM and a 1gb video card then windows will only see 3gb RAM and the 1gb video card (3+1=4gb in total). The extra 1gb of RAM you have will just be ignored by the 32bit Vista.

 

[Michael172]

wtf has that got to do with vista??

one would assume he has vista, and although it can cope with 4gb of ram in it's 32bit flavour, it causes other problems which he would rather fix even if it means running 3GB RAM in XP

I currently have 64 bit vista with 4GB of ram. Want to format and put XP on it, but ive got 4 gb of ram, and i hear the 64 bit XP is a bit s**t. So i was going to sacrifice a stick of ram reducing my total to 3GB.

Worth changing to 64bit?

I am on 64 bit vista, but ive mentioned above ive heard that 64 bit XP is ment to be shite, or atleast as far as drivers are concerned. Compatability issues 'n the likes.

 

[David]

still dont' see how vista would be the entity adjusting your bus speeds but i'm sure you boys know best.

 

[Michael172]

still dont' see how vista would be the entity adjusting your bus speeds but i'm sure you boys know best.

Back in the olden days when i was running an athlon xp 1.7ghz, i decided id cram 4gb of ram in my motherboard. So it only picked up about 3.4ish in xp 32 bit and my ram speeds had gone down to about 200mhz from 400. Now ive got 64 bit vista with 4gb of 1066mhz ram. Ive never been a complete fan boy of vista and i still prefer XP hence the want to format and go back to it. HOWEVER, id rarther not sacrifice any of my ram if i was going to move down to XP again, 64bit XP is ment to be shite as far as compatability is concerned and 32 bit wont pick up the 4gb i have. So i was hoping i could remove a 1GB stick of it and have 3GB.

 

[McBunny]

why remove it just install it and use the 3 gig switch

xp cant change your bus speeds running xp 32 on 4gig isnt a problem at all

 

[Greeny.]

Ye stay away from XP 64bit, its not nice. Vista is fine for a basic users uses but anything past that I find is useless. Also ive found with my hardware I get worse performance in Vista 32bit or 64bit over XP 32bit, plus XP SP3 is far more stable for me. The only plus I can see from Vista is that it looks nice. I also use Vista Ultimate SP1 at work which is again ok but explorer.exe likes to randomly crash, my folders views changes themselves, shitty small things like that really annoy me and make me hate Vista even more!

 

[David]

IMO....vista rules!

 

[Greeny.]

It rules at crashing and generally being an annoyance, yes. :]

 

[McBunny]

mine havent crashed once yet

 

[Mike_182]

I see Bullshit.

I can get 8GB ram running at stock (and overclocked) speeds in any 32-bit or 64-bit system. The OS just decides how much of that it can see.

The operating system has NO effect on RAM clock speeds. Your clock speeds are likely to have been reduced due to undervoltaging as 4 sticks in desktop computers need more juice putting to them. Hence why when overclocking it is easier to use 2x2GB sticks than 4x1GB sticks.

Sounds like you just can't be happy though, so do whatever the hell you like. You obviously know better than any of the technical reviewers on any website.

 

[Mike_182]

However, to answer the original question, the maximum amount of RAM in 32-bit Windows XP varies from machine to machine. It's not worth putting any more than 4GB in sticks in it, but it will use as much as possible and that varies depending on the amount of memory that is in use on other hardware.

 

[David]

thank you!

yup no crashes for me either :-/

 

[iain187]

I've not had any vista crashes or notice it be slower than xp


...but i have turned a lot of things off and find a lot of the new interfaces a pain in the arse.


i dont really mind using either tbh

 

[wozzaa]

Vista runs rock stable for me both 32 and 64 bit versions. And have not yet found a problem with anything running. Infact it is easier to get programs running under vista I find than under XP especially older programs.

Also had XP64 and again no issues with driver compatibility, or crashing etc. XP64 was crap when it first came out but its been out a long time now. And is basically just server 2003 anyway. Not an issue running hardware on it no more. Works fine.

However as has been said Windows can not control clock speeds of ram. When you say it is running at 200mhz... do you realise that 200mhz = 400mhz? DDR ram means you times the clock speed by 2 to get the true speed. So what might show as 200mhz in certain bits of software is actually 400mhz.

Bit like my ram in my current machine which is 800mhz stuff runs at 400mhz but actual true speed is 800mhz.

 

[Munson]

It rules at crashing and generally being an annoyance, yes. :]

Only if you're a techno leper TBH. Vista crashes far less than XP. It's much better at recovering from driver errors for starters. Some people...step away from the bandwagon :boring:

 

[sn00p]

Only if you're a techno leper TBH. Vista crashes far less than XP. It's much better at recovering from driver errors for starters. Some people...step away from the bandwagon :boring:

I only I had a penny for everytime I see the "Display driver stopped responding but recovered" bubble on vista at work, I'd be a rich man!

 

[Munson]

I only I had a penny for everytime I see the "Display driver stopped responding but recovered" bubble on vista at work, I'd be a rich man!

But did it crash? No

TBH I really really wonder what some of you boys do to your PCs to have such issues. I've had the display driver problems before on my games machine, but only using beta drivers and/or overclocking the f**k out of my cards. Otherwise totally stable. Always.

 

[sn00p]

But did it crash? No

TBH I really really wonder what some of you boys do to your PCs to have such issues. I've had the display driver problems before on my games machine, but only using beta drivers and/or overclocking the f**k out of my cards. Otherwise totally stable. Always.

Yes. It blue screens all the f**king time, I feel like I've gotten away with it when it says "display driver has stopped responding".

 

[Munson]

Then you've got a conflict of some sort. Vista doesn't bluescreen all the time for fun.

 

[PinkoCommie]

32bit Vista can handle 4GB RAM total, this includes memory and any video card memory.

So if you have 4gb RAM and a 1gb video card then windows will only see 3gb RAM and the 1gb video card (3+1=4gb in total). The extra 1gb of RAM you have will just be ignored by the 32bit Vista.

Spot on, 4gb is actually a limit of any 32bit operating system. It 2 to the power of 32 bytes of addressable memory.

64bit OS's have a theoretical limit of 16 exabytes, but generally tend to stick an artificial limit on it (I think 64 bit windows server is about 6 terrabytes or something stupid like that).

 

[sn00p]

Then you've got a conflict of some sort. Vista doesn't bluescreen all the time for fun.

Mine does.

Luckily linux works without issue and my development toolchain runs under linux, so I can limit my vista experience.

 

[Munson]

Mine does.

Luckily linux works without issue and my development toolchain runs under linux, so I can limit my vista experience.

Yes, your does, mine doesn't. Ergo there isn't a general problem with Vista crashing regardless of machine or configuration. TBH you've obviously got a driver/hardware issue that Vista doesn't like. I'm sure you could fix it if you wanted to, but it's way cooler to just hate it

 

[sn00p]

Yes, your does, mine doesn't. Ergo there isn't a general problem with Vista crashing regardless of machine or configuration. TBH you've obviously got a driver/hardware issue that Vista doesn't like. I'm sure you could fix it if you wanted to, but it's way cooler to just hate it

I didn't say there was a general problem though and I didn't say I hated it, those are you words!

What Microsoft should have done for Vista is ditch the god awful WDM driver model and go look at how BSD & Linux implement drivers. I bet 90% of all driver problems in Windows are due the stupid complexities of WDM, even Microsoft had to roll out WDF (a wrapper around WDM) to hide most of WDM from driver writers.

 

[Munson]

I didn't say there was a general problem though and I didn't say I hated it, those are you words!

What Microsoft should have done for Vista is ditch the god awful WDM driver model and go look at how BSD & Linux implement drivers. I bet 90% of all driver problems in Windows are due the stupid complexities of WDM, even Microsoft had to roll out WDF (a wrapper around WDM) to hide most of WDM from driver writers.

Well okay, but since this part of the discussion was due to you quoting me in defence of someone saying it always crashes, it's reasonable to think the tone was that Vista sucks

The rest of your post doesn't mean much to me so I'll take your word for it.

 

[Mike_182]

There's nothing much wrong with WDDM - it's actually a much more efficient way of addressing the cards than the outgoing XPDM.

The Display Driver not responding + bluescreen was an nVidia issue that they were moaned at time and time again but never did anything about it - they now seem to have fixed it. Now, as Roy says, the only issue I experience is when I clock it that little bit too much.

Oh, and if you know so much about display driver technologies, why not email bill.gates.replacement@microsoft.com to tell him all about your new idea and offer to fix all of his problems for £500,000. Cos if there is a problem, that's a small amount of money to pay.

 

[sn00p]

There's nothing much wrong with WDDM - it's actually a much more efficient way of addressing the cards than the outgoing XPDM.

You'll notice if you read what I actually wrote that I was referring to WDM.

The Display Driver not responding + bluescreen was an nVidia issue that they were moaned at time and time again but never did anything about it - they now seem to have fixed it. Now, as Roy says, the only issue I experience is when I clock it that little bit too much.

Happens with an ATI card too.

Oh, and if you know so much about display driver technologies, why not email bill.gates.replacement@microsoft.com to tell him all about your new idea and offer to fix all of his problems for £500,000. Cos if there is a problem, that's a small amount of money to pay.

I know nothing about windows display driver technologies.

I do however know a lot about windows & linux driver technologies having written plenty of drivers myself.

They know WDM is s**t, they've had to provide a wrapper around it!

Oh, and the "signed driver" stuff is crap, Microsoft would certify a turd if you provide them a code signing certificate and pay your money.

 

[Mike_182]

Never had it on any ATI card, bar the 4870x2 which I put in my machine before ATI had released a driver.

They released a driver, and the fail went away.

Have you got a dodgy memory stick or motherboard? It really suprises me that you STILL get those issues. Do you mess with it at all? Or have it as it comes out of the box?

 

[sn00p]

Never had it on any ATI card, bar the 4870x2 which I put in my machine before ATI had released a driver.

They released a driver, and the fail went away.

Have you got a dodgy memory stick or motherboard? It really suprises me that you STILL get those issues. Do you mess with it at all? Or have it as it comes out of the box?

Motherboard is P35C-DS3R.
Graphics card was a 8800GT (now some cheap PCI express radeon)

Can't remember what the processor is, Core 2 Quad, Q9450 I believe (having seen the bios post many times!)

RAM 4GB, no idea, other than matched pair from OC. Was going to try taking a stick out and running with one (or the other) and see if I still get problems.

On a side note, I have specifically resisted the urge to put on *any* of my own drivers on this machine, just to discount that theory!

 

[Munson]

TBH if you can write your own drivers, you should be good enough with PCs to be able to sort out a bluescreen issue without blaming it on the OS. Or are you now saying it might not be the OS? Confused TBH.

OS Wars :approve:

 

[David]

if you're getting blu screen on that setup it's because of a hardware problem ...if you can rule out a user error it's not going to be an OS issue. If you're so convinced put on xp to see if it helps...although i seriously doubt it will make any difference, you'll still get problems. That configuration is very common.

 

[sn00p]

TBH if you can write your own drivers, you should be good enough with PCs to be able to sort out a bluescreen issue without blaming it on the OS. Or are you now saying it might not be the OS? Confused TBH.

OS Wars :approve:

Point me to the part where I blamed the OS for the crashing, those are you words again Mr. Munson, no wonder you're confused. TBQFH.

Great thing about having source to your own drivers is you can fix problems...something which you can't do with binary only drivers.....

 

[PinkoCommie]

Motherboard is P35C-DS3R.
Graphics card was a 8800GT (now some cheap PCI express radeon)

Can't remember what the processor is, Core 2 Quad, Q9450 I believe (having seen the bios post many times!)

RAM 4GB, no idea, other than matched pair from OC. Was going to try taking a stick out and running with one (or the other) and see if I still get problems.

On a side note, I have specifically resisted the urge to put on *any* of my own drivers on this machine, just to discount that theory!

I would check your motherboard voltages out.

I used to have random bluescreen problems with my machine, was using a matched pair of OCZ, and to get rid of them I had to increase my RAM voltage from the default 2.4 to 2.7. Though when I upgraded my PSU, the issue went away because it was delivering much more stable voltage.

What size PSU are you running,and how many hard drives and other various peripherals are plugged in (especially bus powered USB devices)?

EDIT: The initial problem with mine looked like a graphics driver issue, as when I did get the bluescreen it was only ever when I was playing graphically intensive games. It turned out that it was when the graphics card went into 3d mode it just happened to pull more power, and dropped the voltage across the 5v rail and the RAM would drop out and crash the machine. Interestingly, XP would just freeze and not come back, while vista would bluescreen.

 

[@Spoonie]

Spot on, 4gb is actually a limit of any 32bit operating system. It 2 to the power of 32 bytes of addressable memory.

I think you are confusing 4GB of addressable space for 32bit processes. 32bit O/S itself is not limited to 4GB of RAM.