[AccessD] Using 4 gbytes of RAM

Francisco Tapia fhtapia at gmail.com
Thu Aug 31 13:40:23 CDT 2006


My work laptop is equipped w/ 2 gig.  XP(32) will only handle up to
4gig, Going to XP(64) will allow you to use more memory but at a
price, that being reliable drivers for your hardware.  x64 is still a
small market, and thus manufacturers don't typically test their 64
counterpart drivers as well, some even prevent installing the 32bit
driver on the 64bit OS. :(  My wife's laptop is a x64 cpu, but she's
running the 32bit OS because of the drivers situation.

btw, Windows 2003 std is also limited to 4gb, you'd want to go w/
enterprise to go beyond that limit.

On 8/31/06, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Hi John:
>
> I have never heard of a XP OS computer having more than a gig. All other
> systems using larger amounts of memory, that I am aquatinted with, are
> servers of various kinds which are suppose to better at managing memory and
> processes. Your limitations will definitely be the OS before the hardware.
>
> I would recommend that you try Window 2003 server standard. It is totally
> brain-dead to install; takes about an hour and a half to install (DVDs are
> slow) and asks once whether you want to use it as a domain controller. I use
> one as a work-station and its performance is head and shoulders above XP. It
> is easier to manage and it definitely uses memory better.
>
> Here is a free download that is supposed to do memory diagnostics app for
> windows:
> http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Memory-Tweak/Microsoft-Windows-Memory-Dia
> gnostic.shtml
>
> >From M$:
> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/msit/operations/mscom64bitarchi
> .mspx
>
> What type of motherboard do you have: ASUS, GigaByte ...?
>
>
> Jim
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of JWColby
> Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 7:05 AM
> To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving';
> dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com; Tech - Database Advisors Inc.
> Subject: [AccessD] Using 4 gbytes of RAM
>
> Is anyone using a machine with more than two gig of Ram?  I am reading
> things about doing this and there seems to be a lot of confusion on the
> matter.  Much of the confusion seems to come from the fact that until the 64
> bit versions of the X86 processors, the "internals" of the processor were
> all 32 bits which limited direct generation of addresses to 4 gig.  All of
> my machines are 64 bit (AMD) processors so theoretically they can use more
> than 4 gig but how?
>
> Everyone seems to agree that in XP32, only 4 gig is available to work with
> and that things like video cards and other "machine stuff" eats into that.
> Thus regardless of anything, you will end up with less than 4 gig due to
> that, perhaps as little as 3.25 gig.  After that, confusion reigns, at least
> in my mind.
>
> Understand that I am discussing Windows XP 32 specifically, although anyone
> is welcome to chip in what they "know" regarding other windows versions as
> long as they specify what version they are discussing.
>
> The next thing that is discussed is that the OS itself reserves 2 gig for
> itself (which includes the video etc AFAICT), leaving up to 2 gig for EACH
> APPLICATION, implying that any application can have / use up to 2 gig.
>
> Some claim that if you have 4 gig, the swap file won't be used since that is
> part of the 4 gig available.  It seems illogical since each application can
> use up to 2 gig.  However I have created a separate partition to hold my
> swap file and tried to create one of 6 gig and Windows refused, limiting the
> size of the swap file to 4 gig.
>
> So I am trying to figure out what the reality is.  If a machine has 4 gig
> physical ram, and "machine stuff" uses (for argument's sake) .75 gig, is the
> .75 gig of physical ram simply unused?  Is it used by the OS for buffers?
> What about the swap file?  If you have a 4 gig swap file, would you have
> 7.25 "total available memory" for Windows use?  Does this indeed then limit
> the APPLICATIONS to 5.25 gig of "total" memory and 2 gig of physical memory?
> And what happens if you manage to get (for the sake of argument) 8 gig
> stuffed into a machine.  Some motherboards claim to handle that much but can
> Windows XP 32 actually use it?
>
> Can Windows XP 64?  If you need this much memory is Windows XP 64 a way to
> get at the memory?  If you are still using 32 bit apps, will it actually map
> as much as 2 gig of physical memory to the 32 bit apps so that (for example)
> 3 high powered memory hungry 32 bit apps actually had 2 gig available to
> each of them all the time?
>
> If anyone has run across any authoritive (on-line) reading on the subject I
> would love to look at it.
>
> John W. Colby
> Colby Consulting
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>
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-- 
-Francisco
http://sqlthis.blogspot.com | Tsql and More...



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