32-bit, 2 GB of memory is "Hardware reserved"

Windows 8 Pro 32-bit
motherboard, GA-EP45-UD3L
CPU, Intel Q9550 Core2Quad
graphics, GeForce 9800GT ZT-98GES3G

Of 4 GB of system memory (RAM), Windows 8 Pro reports 2 GB is
"Hardware reserved".

It seems to be using some RAM for the video card, but this is a
standard video card. Windows 8 adds video memory to non-integrated
non-shared-memory video cards?

Should I look for that 2 GB of hardware reserved memory to
fluctuate, depending on applications? But how would that work if
Windows configures that on boot up? Maybe it's dynamic?

Should I try the 64-bit version of Windows 8? My main concern
would be whether Dragon Naturally Speaking works. I could upgrade,
though.

There's nothing wrong with the memory. Windows XP shows 3.5 GB of
RAM.

On 11/3/2012 3:00 PM PT, John Doe typed:

Of 4 GB of system memory (RAM), Windows 8 Pro reports 2 GB is
"Hardware reserved".

It seems to be using some RAM for the video card, but this is a
standard video card. Windows 8 adds video memory to non-integrated
non-shared-memory video cards?

Should I look for that 2 GB of hardware reserved memory to
fluctuate, depending on applications? But how would that work if
Windows configures that on boot up? Maybe it's dynamic?

Should I try the 64-bit version of Windows 8? My main concern
would be whether Dragon Naturally Speaking works. I could upgrade,
though.

There's nothing wrong with the memory. Windows XP shows 3.5 GB of
RAM.

On my 32-bit Windows XP Pro. SP3, it shows 2.5 GB of RAM. From what I
read and told, this is normal. 64-bit OSes will see all of it.
--
"If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the
picnics?" --Marie Dressler
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Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

Ant wrote:
On 11/3/2012 3:00 PM PT, John Doe typed:

Of 4 GB of system memory (RAM), Windows 8 Pro reports 2 GB is
"Hardware reserved".

It seems to be using some RAM for the video card, but this is a
standard video card. Windows 8 adds video memory to non-integrated
non-shared-memory video cards?

Should I look for that 2 GB of hardware reserved memory to
fluctuate, depending on applications? But how would that work if
Windows configures that on boot up? Maybe it's dynamic?

Should I try the 64-bit version of Windows 8? My main concern
would be whether Dragon Naturally Speaking works. I could upgrade,
though.

There's nothing wrong with the memory. Windows XP shows 3.5 GB of
RAM.

On my 32-bit Windows XP Pro. SP3, it shows 2.5 GB of RAM. From what I
read and told, this is normal. 64-bit OSes will see all of it.

Yes, but as I read things, he has 4GB memory installed, and he
owns a 512MB video card. That's the same configuration I'm
running. We both have the same "generation" of chipset. And
my "Hardware Reserved" as shown in resource monitor, is 1025MB.
So basically, I've got 3GB of memory in Win8 x32. His is showing
about 1GB less than that, for no good reason.

The BIOS prepared the memory map, so if there was a problem,
the same problem should have been visible in WinXP SP3 x32.

It's possible, on WinXP, to limit system memory via an option
in boot.ini, and I expect you can do that in Win8 with bcdedit.
But I doubt that is what is happening here.

One difference is, my motherboard BIOS has a "memory remap" setting,
which can be enabled or disabled. In the GA-EP45-UD3L manual,
I can't see such a setting, so I'll have to assume it is always
enabled. Mine is currently enabled, but I don't think that
really helps a 32 bit OS. It's for a 64 bit OS (which I
run occasionally).

On the one chipset I looked up, remapping had a granularity
of 128MB. The BIOS typically allocates addresses for system
busses, in 256MB chunks (whether you need that much or not).
If you need 256MB+1Byte of bus address space, the BIOS
allocates 512MB of addresses,and then 255MB of memory is wasted
because there are no addresses for that memory (on a 32 bit OS).
So the BIOS does not tax the granularity the chipset offers. If the
BIOS wanted to allocate in 128MB chunks, the chipset could
handle it. But the bus standards don't work that way.

Now, on server motherboards, the BIOS seems to work a bit
differently. Allocations there, seem to be done on gigabyte
boundaries. So you can easily install 4GB of memory, and only
have 2GB available in the OS (which would leave the
"Hardware Reserved 2GB" showing in the OS). Most server
users would likely be using a 64 bit OS, where that limitation
would not exist.

There was one Dell workstation, using a desktop chipset (925X ?),
that did this as well. If you installed 4GB of memory,
it didn't matter if you had a tiny (512MB) video card
or not. The system was only going to give you 2GB for memory
addresses. (This was documented on the Dell web site, so
customers could not pretend to be surprised by it.)
So that system as well, seemed to work on gigabyte
boundaries. But most of the rest of the desktop boards, should be
able to give you within 256MB of as much memory address
space as possible. In my case, with a 512MB video card,
a PCI bus, this leads to ~3GB free. If I was using
my FX5200 128MB video card for PCI bus, I might be
able to convince a 32 bit Windows OS to report 3.75GB free.
(That assumes *no* peripherals on AGP or PCI Express busses.
Using a PCI video card small enough to fit in the "first
chunk", is what I'm trying to do there. That's how you attempt
to get to 3.75 or perhaps 3.5GB.)

There have been BIOS in the past, that "double mapped" video
cards (two mapping, one supporting caching, the other uncached).
But that doesn't account for John's symptoms either.
A 512MB video card double mapped, would waste 1GB, and John
is wasting 2GB.

There's bound to be an answer there somewhere - just hope
it's not a BIOS problem.

Paul

Paul nospam needed.com wrote:

One difference is, my motherboard BIOS has a "memory remap"
setting, which can be enabled or disabled. In the GA-EP45-UD3L
manual, I can't see such a setting, so I'll have to assume it is
always enabled.

As usual, you are right again. I took note of that when
researching the problem, and saw no memory remapping setting in
the BIOS.

There's bound to be an answer there somewhere - just hope it's
not a BIOS problem.

I just used a 64-bit Dutch version of Windows 7 to re-download
Windows 8, like I promised to test in the other group. The 64-bit
version ISO is 2.7 GB compared to the 32-bit version 2.1 GB. I
think that suggests that it is 64-bit, will see in a few minutes.
While I was navigating within that foreign version of Windows in
order to re-download Windows 8, Google translate did good job of
helping with the prompts I didn't recognize. I just hope this
newly downloaded Windows 8 isn't in Dutch

And here goes proving whether or not you really cannot get a
64-bit version of Windows 8 if you are running Windows 32-bit.
That explanation sounds a bit silly, but that is how everybody
puts it. Of course just because you are running a 32-bit Windows
doesn't mean you can't re-download from a 64-bit Windows. And that
might be the key to upgrading from 32-bit to 64-bit using the
downloaded version.

Place your bets...

--














Paul

On 11/3/2012 7:13 PM PT, Paul typed:

Of 4 GB of system memory (RAM), Windows 8 Pro reports 2 GB is
"Hardware reserved".

It seems to be using some RAM for the video card, but this is a
standard video card. Windows 8 adds video memory to non-integrated
non-shared-memory video cards?

Should I look for that 2 GB of hardware reserved memory to
fluctuate, depending on applications? But how would that work if
Windows configures that on boot up? Maybe it's dynamic?

Should I try the 64-bit version of Windows 8? My main concern
would be whether Dragon Naturally Speaking works. I could upgrade,
though.

There's nothing wrong with the memory. Windows XP shows 3.5 GB of
RAM.

On my 32-bit Windows XP Pro. SP3, it shows 2.5 GB of RAM. From what I
read and told, this is normal. 64-bit OSes will see all of it.

Yes, but as I read things, he has 4GB memory installed, and he
owns a 512MB video card. That's the same configuration I'm
running. We both have the same "generation" of chipset. And
my "Hardware Reserved" as shown in resource monitor, is 1025MB.
So basically, I've got 3GB of memory in Win8 x32. His is showing
about 1GB less than that, for no good reason.

The BIOS prepared the memory map, so if there was a problem,
the same problem should have been visible in WinXP SP3 x32.

It's possible, on WinXP, to limit system memory via an option
in boot.ini, and I expect you can do that in Win8 with bcdedit.
But I doubt that is what is happening here.

One difference is, my motherboard BIOS has a "memory remap" setting,
which can be enabled or disabled. In the GA-EP45-UD3L manual,
I can't see such a setting, so I'll have to assume it is always
enabled. Mine is currently enabled, but I don't think that
really helps a 32 bit OS. It's for a 64 bit OS (which I
run occasionally).

On the one chipset I looked up, remapping had a granularity
of 128MB. The BIOS typically allocates addresses for system
busses, in 256MB chunks (whether you need that much or not).
If you need 256MB+1Byte of bus address space, the BIOS
allocates 512MB of addresses,and then 255MB of memory is wasted
because there are no addresses for that memory (on a 32 bit OS).
So the BIOS does not tax the granularity the chipset offers. If the
BIOS wanted to allocate in 128MB chunks, the chipset could
handle it. But the bus standards don't work that way.

Now, on server motherboards, the BIOS seems to work a bit
differently. Allocations there, seem to be done on gigabyte
boundaries. So you can easily install 4GB of memory, and only
have 2GB available in the OS (which would leave the
"Hardware Reserved 2GB" showing in the OS). Most server
users would likely be using a 64 bit OS, where that limitation
would not exist.

There was one Dell workstation, using a desktop chipset (925X ?),
that did this as well. If you installed 4GB of memory,
it didn't matter if you had a tiny (512MB) video card
or not. The system was only going to give you 2GB for memory
addresses. (This was documented on the Dell web site, so
customers could not pretend to be surprised by it.)
So that system as well, seemed to work on gigabyte
boundaries. But most of the rest of the desktop boards, should be
able to give you within 256MB of as much memory address
space as possible. In my case, with a 512MB video card,
a PCI bus, this leads to ~3GB free. If I was using
my FX5200 128MB video card for PCI bus, I might be
able to convince a 32 bit Windows OS to report 3.75GB free.
(That assumes *no* peripherals on AGP or PCI Express busses.
Using a PCI video card small enough to fit in the "first
chunk", is what I'm trying to do there. That's how you attempt
to get to 3.75 or perhaps 3.5GB.)

There have been BIOS in the past, that "double mapped" video
cards (two mapping, one supporting caching, the other uncached).
But that doesn't account for John's symptoms either.
A 512MB video card double mapped, would waste 1GB, and John
is wasting 2GB.

For me, I have 6 GB of RAM and a 512 MB of VRAM (ATI Radeon HD 4870
video card).


There's bound to be an answer there somewhere - just hope
it's not a BIOS problem.

I read that it is related to BIOS? [shrugs]
--
"If I want to be a robber, I rob the king's treasury. If I want to be a
hunter, I hunt the rhino. What is the use of robbing beggars and hunting
ants? So if you want to love, love God." --Swami Vivekananda
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

John Doe wrote:
Paul nospam needed.com wrote:

One difference is, my motherboard BIOS has a "memory remap"
setting, which can be enabled or disabled. In the GA-EP45-UD3L
manual, I can't see such a setting, so I'll have to assume it is
always enabled.

As usual, you are right again. I took note of that when
researching the problem, and saw no memory remapping setting in
the BIOS.

There's bound to be an answer there somewhere - just hope it's
not a BIOS problem.

I just used a 64-bit Dutch version of Windows 7 to re-download
Windows 8, like I promised to test in the other group. The 64-bit
version ISO is 2.7 GB compared to the 32-bit version 2.1 GB. I
think that suggests that it is 64-bit, will see in a few minutes.
While I was navigating within that foreign version of Windows in
order to re-download Windows 8, Google translate did good job of
helping with the prompts I didn't recognize. I just hope this
newly downloaded Windows 8 isn't in Dutch

And here goes proving whether or not you really cannot get a
64-bit version of Windows 8 if you are running Windows 32-bit.
That explanation sounds a bit silly, but that is how everybody
puts it. Of course just because you are running a 32-bit Windows
doesn't mean you can't re-download from a 64-bit Windows. And that
might be the key to upgrading from 32-bit to 64-bit using the
downloaded version.

Place your bets...


Just out of curiosity, is "Plug and Play OS" setting in the BIOS
set to Yes or No ? For Windows, it would normally be No, and
then the BIOS does the planning. This setting would be
evaluated on each reboot (being careful to fully shutdown
Win8 before the reboot, not hybrid shutdown).

http://www.techarp.com/showFreeBOG.a...ng=0&bogno=149

"To sum it all up, except for certain cases, it is highly
recommended that you to set this BIOS feature to No,
irrespective of the operating system you actually use."

I thought PNP OS affects card assignments, but don't have a clue
whether it affects the memory mapping setup. I can't imagine
Windows setting up the chipset map on its own. I don't see
how it could. The BIOS has the necessary info, and the
opportunity to do so, before any other code is running.

HTH,
Paul

On 11/4/2012 2:32 AM, Ant wrote:
On 11/3/2012 7:13 PM PT, Paul typed:

Of 4 GB of system memory (RAM), Windows 8 Pro reports 2 GB is
"Hardware reserved".

It seems to be using some RAM for the video card, but this is a
standard video card. Windows 8 adds video memory to non-integrated
non-shared-memory video cards?

Should I look for that 2 GB of hardware reserved memory to
fluctuate, depending on applications? But how would that work if
Windows configures that on boot up? Maybe it's dynamic?

Should I try the 64-bit version of Windows 8? My main concern
would be whether Dragon Naturally Speaking works. I could upgrade,
though.

There's nothing wrong with the memory. Windows XP shows 3.5 GB of
RAM.

On my 32-bit Windows XP Pro. SP3, it shows 2.5 GB of RAM. From what I
read and told, this is normal. 64-bit OSes will see all of it.

Yes, but as I read things, he has 4GB memory installed, and he
owns a 512MB video card. That's the same configuration I'm
running. We both have the same "generation" of chipset. And
my "Hardware Reserved" as shown in resource monitor, is 1025MB.
So basically, I've got 3GB of memory in Win8 x32. His is showing
about 1GB less than that, for no good reason.

The BIOS prepared the memory map, so if there was a problem,
the same problem should have been visible in WinXP SP3 x32.

It's possible, on WinXP, to limit system memory via an option
in boot.ini, and I expect you can do that in Win8 with bcdedit.
But I doubt that is what is happening here.

One difference is, my motherboard BIOS has a "memory remap" setting,
which can be enabled or disabled. In the GA-EP45-UD3L manual,
I can't see such a setting, so I'll have to assume it is always
enabled. Mine is currently enabled, but I don't think that
really helps a 32 bit OS. It's for a 64 bit OS (which I
run occasionally).

On the one chipset I looked up, remapping had a granularity
of 128MB. The BIOS typically allocates addresses for system
busses, in 256MB chunks (whether you need that much or not).
If you need 256MB+1Byte of bus address space, the BIOS
allocates 512MB of addresses,and then 255MB of memory is wasted
because there are no addresses for that memory (on a 32 bit OS).
So the BIOS does not tax the granularity the chipset offers. If the
BIOS wanted to allocate in 128MB chunks, the chipset could
handle it. But the bus standards don't work that way.

Now, on server motherboards, the BIOS seems to work a bit
differently. Allocations there, seem to be done on gigabyte
boundaries. So you can easily install 4GB of memory, and only
have 2GB available in the OS (which would leave the
"Hardware Reserved 2GB" showing in the OS). Most server
users would likely be using a 64 bit OS, where that limitation
would not exist.

There was one Dell workstation, using a desktop chipset (925X ?),
that did this as well. If you installed 4GB of memory,
it didn't matter if you had a tiny (512MB) video card
or not. The system was only going to give you 2GB for memory
addresses. (This was documented on the Dell web site, so
customers could not pretend to be surprised by it.)
So that system as well, seemed to work on gigabyte
boundaries. But most of the rest of the desktop boards, should be
able to give you within 256MB of as much memory address
space as possible. In my case, with a 512MB video card,
a PCI bus, this leads to ~3GB free. If I was using
my FX5200 128MB video card for PCI bus, I might be
able to convince a 32 bit Windows OS to report 3.75GB free.
(That assumes *no* peripherals on AGP or PCI Express busses.
Using a PCI video card small enough to fit in the "first
chunk", is what I'm trying to do there. That's how you attempt
to get to 3.75 or perhaps 3.5GB.)

There have been BIOS in the past, that "double mapped" video
cards (two mapping, one supporting caching, the other uncached).
But that doesn't account for John's symptoms either.
A 512MB video card double mapped, would waste 1GB, and John
is wasting 2GB.

For me, I have 6 GB of RAM and a 512 MB of VRAM (ATI Radeon HD 4870
video card).


There's bound to be an answer there somewhere - just hope
it's not a BIOS problem.

I read that it is related to BIOS? [shrugs]


BIOS or not, MS memory management in windows is a combination of things
that limit efficient and full utilization of existing memory.
One of the more egregious limits is related to a "marketing decision"
to limit usable memory size in specific windows versions.
Code exists within the win 7 32bit versions, but is deliberately
disabled, unless you run in a rather obscure developer configuration
that must be manually setup, and can have problems with some of the
disabling features.

Video Memory mapping is also a combination of problems due to legacy
concerns, memory controllers, and windows. The last time I bothered to
look, features of the various memory controllers were not fully
implemented, and contributed to the problem.

Paul wrote:

Just out of curiosity, is "Plug and Play OS" setting in the BIOS
set to Yes or No ? For Windows, it would normally be No, and
then the BIOS does the planning.

I've set it to "Yes" since getting rid of DOS and Win3.x, why not let
Windows (or L*n*x) do the job?

Paul nospam needed.com wrote:

John Doe wrote:
Paul nospam needed.com wrote:

One difference is, my motherboard BIOS has a "memory remap"
setting, which can be enabled or disabled. In the GA-EP45-UD3L
manual, I can't see such a setting, so I'll have to assume it
is always enabled.

As usual, you are right again. I took note of that when
researching the problem, and saw no memory remapping setting in
the BIOS.

There's bound to be an answer there somewhere - just hope it's
not a BIOS problem.

I just used a 64-bit Dutch version of Windows 7 to re-download
Windows 8, like I promised to test in the other group. The
64-bit version ISO is 2.7 GB compared to the 32-bit version 2.1
GB. I think that suggests that it is 64-bit, will see in a few
minutes. While I was navigating within that foreign version of
Windows in order to re-download Windows 8, Google translate did
good job of helping with the prompts I didn't recognize. I just
hope this newly downloaded Windows 8 isn't in Dutch

It was in Dutch.

And here goes proving whether or not you really cannot get a
64-bit version of Windows 8 if you are running Windows 32-bit.
That explanation sounds a bit silly, but that is how everybody
puts it. Of course just because you are running a 32-bit
Windows doesn't mean you can't re-download from a 64-bit
Windows. And that might be the key to upgrading from 32-bit to
64-bit using the downloaded version.

Place your bets...

Just out of curiosity, is "Plug and Play OS" setting in the BIOS
set to Yes or No ? For Windows, it would normally be No, and
then the BIOS does the planning. This setting would be evaluated
on each reboot (being careful to fully shutdown Win8 before the
reboot, not hybrid shutdown).

http://www.techarp.com/showFreeBOG.a...ng=0&bogno=149

"To sum it all up, except for certain cases, it is highly
recommended that you to set this BIOS feature to No,
irrespective of the operating system you actually use."

I thought PNP OS affects card assignments, but don't have a clue
whether it affects the memory mapping setup. I can't imagine
Windows setting up the chipset map on its own. I don't see how
it could. The BIOS has the necessary info, and the opportunity
to do so, before any other code is running.

Have you heard of an operating system adding video memory to an
ordinary video card that does not officially use shared memory (as
talked about in my original post)?

I do not recall seeing the "Plug and Play OS" setting for some
time. Then again, I haven't been messing with the BIOS much in
recent years. I will check.

I just re-downloaded Windows 8 from within an English 64-bit
version of Windows 7 and apparently got a 64-bit version of
Windows 8. So, contrary to popular belief, you can go from 32-bit
to 64-bit when using the Windows 8 download method, for $40 (plus
tax).

From within Windows 7, memory showed as 4 GB (as it does in
Windows XP). Now to see how much of my 4 GB of RAM shows in 64-bit
Windows 8.

--











HTH,
Paul

Well... Now in 64-bit Pro. It's confusing (and I usually know what
I'm doing in Windows). For now, I will forget it. Will post a
screenshot later, showing the "Hardware reserved" memory.

If you haven't already, check out the new Task Manager and Resource
Monitor. Don't know how real it is, but it looks impressive. I hope
System Monitor has been improved.

On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 18:46:13 -0700, Ant wrote:


On my 32-bit Windows XP Pro. SP3, it shows 2.5 GB of RAM. From what I
read and told, this is normal.


It's not really normal. Although it's possible with some hardware
configurations, it's definitely on the low side, and it's rare that
anyone has that little.

All 32-bit client versions of Windows (not just XP/Vista/7) have a 4GB
address space (64-bit versions can use much more). That's the
theoretical upper limit beyond which you can not go.

But you can't use the entire address space. Even though you have a
4GB address space, you can only use *around* 3.1GB of RAM. That's
because some of that space is used by hardware and is not available to
the operating system and applications. The amount you can
use varies, depending on what hardware you have installed, but can
range from as little as 2GB to as much as 3.5GB. It's usually around
3.1GB.

Note that the hardware is using the address *space*, not the actual
RAM itself. If you have a greater amount of RAM, the rest of the RAM
goes unused because there is no address space to map it to.


--
Ken Blake

In the next installation, after having reset/cleared the BIOS, only
514 MB of RAM is "Hardware reserved".

Should wait until I get used to the OS before trying to troubleshoot
much of anything.


Windows 8 Pro 32-bit
motherboard, GA-EP45-UD3L
CPU, Intel Q9550 Core2Quad
graphics, GeForce 9800GT ZT-98GES3G

Of 4 GB of system memory (RAM), Windows 8 Pro reports 2 GB is
"Hardware reserved".

On 11/5/2012 11:41 AM, John Doe wrote:
In the next installation, after having reset/cleared the BIOS, only
514 MB of RAM is "Hardware reserved".

Should wait until I get used to the OS before trying to troubleshoot
much of anything.


Windows 8 Pro 32-bit
motherboard, GA-EP45-UD3L
CPU, Intel Q9550 Core2Quad
graphics, GeForce 9800GT ZT-98GES3G

Of 4 GB of system memory (RAM), Windows 8 Pro reports 2 GB is
"Hardware reserved".

That's about what I would expect to see. (512Mb or so.)
On my old HP Vista laptop, the video system has 512mb of video memory,
and utilizes system RAM for the rest of video memory at higher resolutions.