In this day and age, 4GB of RAM is not so uncommon in computers. Some new ones when you buy them, have it. But then, most of them only come with a 32-bit system. Depending on what hardware the machine has, you’ll mostly see something around 3.2-3.5 GB of RAM available. So where did the RAM go? My computer broken or what? I just spent good money on it.
Your computer is not broken. It has to do with a limitation of 32-bit chips. They can only handle 4 GB of RAM:
2 ^ 32 = 4,294,967,296
I’m going to leave out all the technical details, let’s just say the OS needs some of RAM near the end for the devices in the machine.
On Windows, so I heard, you can get around it using the /PAE switch in boot.ini – this however won’t work on Windows 7, mind you (has no boot.ini).
If you use an Ubuntu with 32-bit – but have 4 GB or even more RAM installed, chances are you have the 3.2 GB RAM Problem. Luckily, at least for Ubuntu users, there’s a quick fix to give you access to 4 GB and more, automagically. Open a terminal, and type:
sudo apt-get install linux-generic-pae linux-headers-generic-pae
Then reboot. Enjoy your 4, 8 or even more GB on 32-bit.
Original source:
Ubuntu 4 GB RAM limitation and solution
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1 comment
Resender says:
March 30, 2011 at 7:24 pm (UTC 0)
You; know the database server of EvE Online has 512 GB of RAM