32 bit OS, 8Gb Ram. This is for the computer smart people.....

[RTKAT]

Reading a forum some where a person stated they had a 32 bit OS and added enough memory to bring the total to 8Gb. Every one else told him the system could only use 4Gb max. He needed a 64 bit OS to use that much memory. Well, he stated programs still loaded and his system worked better with the 8Gb installed. When he took out 4Gb, the system slowed down. Is this guy nuts or could it help speed up his computer?

[gEd]

One theory...if he had 1 x 4GB and upgraded to 2 x 4GB, this would have enables dual memory channels which would have sped up memory access times.

else, yes, 32bit windows can only access a theoretical max of 4GB (that's just maths), something like 2.75GB in practice.

[mvallevand]

With PAE some 32 bit servers can access more than 4MB, but I suspect that dual channel is the reason for the extra speed.

Martin

[RTKAT]

Interesting.
Thanks guys.

[Jaggy]

Another possibility is he has a mobo with onboard video that is stealing from the main ram reducing it from the total of 4GB that he thought he had.

[mvallevand]

Another possibility is he has a mobo with onboard video that is stealing from the main ram reducing it from the total of 4GB that he thought he had.

You can't get more than 3.2MB addressable on 32biit Windows desktops anyway.

Martin

[martint123]

I think some ramdisks can use the memory above 4gb and the pagefile could be placed there to improve performance.