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 > > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > -- -Francisco http://sqlthis.blogspot.com | Tsql and More...