Where did my memory go ?

Windows Vista 32Bit memory issues

Since I am in a hurry I will sum things up for you guys fast

32Bit operating systems can address up to 4GBs of memory, but not necessarily your system memory, the address space is shared between the PCI bus and the system memory, so the addressing includes your Video card, and other hardware you have installed, so some of you might find 3GBs, some may have 3.2 for example, it all depends on the hardware.

64Bit operating systems can address much much more.

Chip sets for the Home user these days can take 8GBs+ of memory, but that will not make a difference on a 32Bit os

PAE can make your computer recognize more than 3 Gbs, But 99% of desktop applications will NOT be able to make use of the extra GB.

Some people say that the extra GB is being used by Windows to take care of overheads etc.. this is absolutely untrue.

The truth is, the missing GB can not be addressed so no one is going to be using it, it is like owning a house and not knowing where it exists, there is no address for the missing memory and therefore no data is going to find that memory, Not even windows (technically).

So, should I take that memory out ?

Some of it may be used by your shared memory graphics card, if you have another computer, it is better there, but if you just want to take it out because it could hurt performance, it will not hurt.

Please note that even if you run a 64Bit OS, you need support on your motherboard, So if your motherboard only supports 4GBs of ram, you will again not gain anything from running 64bit

again, the missing memory will still be missing if your motherboard supports less than 8GBs of ram (4GBs is one step under 8GBs).

You also need a 64Bit capable processor to run 64Bit