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I have installed Windows 7 32bit and I have 4GB of RAM. The computer boot fine but after a while when I click on the Hard Drive Folder I just get a White Screen. However, W7 only reports 2.96 GB Ram usable while it does recognize there are 4GBs. Previously I had Vista 32Bit with SP1 and that fully recognized my 4GB. Can any one tell me that why does my Windows 7 32bit does not support 4GB Ram? any one knows about it? Please help me out to resolve the above issue. Thanks.
That's normal for a 32 bit system. Windows 7 32-bit works the same as XP 32-bit with respect to RAM recognition. No difference. It will see 4GB, but only address 3.XGB. Windows addresses 4 gig max then you take away the memory that's on the video board (which uses up address space) and a bunch of memory that Windows uses. Limits on physical memory for 32-bit platforms also depend on the Physical Address Extension (PAE), which allows 32-bit Windows systems to use more than 4 GB of physical memory.
Your motherboard, BIOS, and installed cards - especially video cards - determine how much of the "address space" is used up. The ACPI driver is installed by default, there is no need to download it. First, it’s still true that any 32-bit OS needs to use part of the 4GB address space to address resources. However, you’re right that Physical Address Extension (PAE) can be used to address more than 4GB from 32-bit OSs–this is true of some Linux distributions and many 32-bit Windows OS.
If you need full use of 4GB ram, you should install 64-bit product on the computer. For your current situation, please purchase the Windows 7 64-bit OS; format the HDD and do a clean-install on the computer. Basically, yes, PAE can enable more than 4GB of RAM on a 32bit system (actually 36bit), as that's what OS X does, being 32bit, but it would break the drivers, so no support under the consumer versions of Windows.