Vista 64 Installed Physical Memory vs Total Physical Memory

[Fitz]

I'm running Vista 64 Home (SP1) Premium on a homebuilt machine
w/8GB (4 X 2GB modules). Windows is reporting 8 GB of Installed
Physical Memory but is reporting only 4 GB of Total Physical Memory.

I first noticed this when, after installing a game, the game system
specs said 3092 MB of RAM.

I have checked the BIOS and it recognizes 8 GB. Memory Remapping
is Enabled. Under Memory Remapping is "PCI MMIO Allocation:
4GB to 3328 MB" (?)

MSConfig Boot Options shows Max Memory is not checked and no
value in the box below. I tried enabling it and using 8192 as the value,
but it made no difference.

DxDiag shows 8 GB installed RAM.

Any ideas on how I can get windows to make available all 8 GB of RAM?

(Motherboard is ASUS Maximus II Extreme w/Intel Q9550 processor running
at Q9650 clock speed, memory running at 1127 MHz)

[Keith H]

most likely the case is that the game is not 64 bit compatible.. that is, a 32
bit application running on 64 bit Vista will see only 4GB memory, even if you
have more than 4GB installed..
see:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr..._windows_vista

I would agree, except that Windows System information is showing 4GB Total Memory, even though
it shows 8GB Physical Memory Installed.

Where is "Windows" reporting 4 GB total memory and 8GB installed memory? What
program(s) are you running that show you this?

What does something like CPU-Z show?

Control Panel > Performance Information and Tools > Advanced Tools >
View Advanced System Details In System Information

[Keith H]

This is what msinfo32.exe shows for _my_ system..

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 4.00 GB
Available Physical Memory 5.71 GB

notice that is a 32bit application.. it looks like MS forgot to fix the
reporting on Total Physical Memory.. If you google this you'll see lots of talk
about this but no real fix

you could always run c:\windows\syswow64\systeminfo.exe from a command window..
this is a 64bit app.. notice below it reporting Total Physical Memory as 8,190MB
(8.00GB) with about the same Available memory amount that msinfo32.exe reported
above..

Total Physical Memory: 8,190 MB
Available Physical Memory: 5,812 MB

it seems to me that this is a known bug with msinfo32, however it must be very
low on MS's fix-list priorities.. in the meantime I suggest ignoring msinfo32's
"Total Physical Memory" line until either they fix it or remove it..

[Poutnik]

It looks like common mistake.

64bit executables are not in syswow64, but in system32.
( MS logic )

Short look to Process Explorer will show you
systeminfo from syswow64 is 32bit app.

[seaborn]

I just found this issue on my machine also. I have the same thing in the
bios that you have. I have followed all suggestions I can find and still
the same thing. If windows doesn't see it, I dont see how it could have
anything to do with the program your are running. I would understand if
a 32bit program can only use 4gb. I want all 8 for as much as possible.

This is annoying.


--
seaborn