I have a nvidia Go 7300 graphic card in my asus laptop with 4GB of memory, i installed windows 7 rc and like vista i can use only 2.87GB of my memory because the rest is been used by the shared system memory for my graphic card... it's a bit stupid that anyone with 4 GB of memory can't use them... Windows should use the 4GB of memory and if necessary allocate more memory only the amount of memory needed and when isn't already needed free that memory so windows 7 can use the full 4GB... It's possible to fix this in future releases? Or is there a solution for this problem? I have windows server 2008 installed in another machine with a ati x300 with hypermemory and windows uses the full 4GB even with a 1,7GB allocated for shared system memory why windows 7 doesn't do the same?

Pedro - If you've got the 32 bit version of Windows 7 installed, there is a physical limitation as to how much RAM it can access. The 64 bit version can access the full 4 GB (and a lot more). I'm guessing that copy of Windows Server 2008 is, in fact,the 64 bit version. The solution then would be to get the 64 bit RC and install it instead. The downside - you'll need to backup, nuke and pave (do a clean install) Windows 7as you can't upgrade from the 32 bit client to the 64 bit version directly.

I'm sorry i forgot to say that my system is 64bit :P

Pedro, pretty much anyone's hardware is 64-bit these days. Wolfie's question is this: did you install the 32-bit or 64-bit version?Even if you're fairly certain that you installed x64, please open System Properties, and see what's listed on the "System type:" line.-Chris[If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]

I have installed Windows 7 Ultimate RC x64 ...

Pedro, I do not intend to insult you. However, many, many people have inadvertantly downloaded (and, therefore, installed) the x86 release, when they intended to go with x64.So, I'll respectfully ask again: could you please see what System Properties reports for System type? Because, what you've posted so far just screams "32-bit operating system."Also, could you post full and complete specs on that machine in question, including: motherboard, BIOS revision, CPU, RAM (brand/speed/# of DIMMs), and so on?Some boards can require a bit of BIOS tweaking, to get Windows to 'see' all of the RAM properly.-Chris[If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]

System Type: 64-bit Operating System Laptop: Asus z53Jc Intel Core 2 Duo T7200, 2000 MHz 2GB A-Data DDR2-667(333 MHz) 2GB Team-Elite DDR2-667 (333Mhz) Motherboard BIOS revision: 307 Windows 7 RC x64 Nvidia Geforce GO 7300 if you need something else just ask.

Pedro, I, too, am running Windows 7 x64 with 4GB of memory but am told by the system that only 3.25GB are available to the OS, and none of this is being borrowed by the video memory. There have been sporadic testimonies of similar issues, and the consensus seems to be that it's a motherboard issue that does not affect similar configurations running Windows Vista, and it should be fixed in the final release.-Alex

No solutions?

Pedro, it'sa holiday weekend (in the US, anyways) ;)It might be a limitation of your hardware (read: motherboard); it might be a simple BIOS setting.Take a look around in your BIOS for a setting called "memory remap" (or similar) - it it's there, enable it.If you cannot find that setting, then it's likely that your hardware simply doesn't properly support it all.But, before throwing in the towel, I'd suggest checking Asus for a BIOS update. For your convenience: http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us(I can't link to your model page, as Asus's site is wonky like that.) Checking there, it doens't look good, though: most recent BIOS (2.12) was posted Jan 2007. Your notebook appears to be orphaned.While I'm not running x64 myself (I'm planning to, once I get more RAM formy desktop, and 7 goes RTM), I do know a good many people who are running x64 on various hardware - Win7 (x64) does support RAM in excess of 4GB.HTH,Chris[If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]

Pedro, I have the same issue; using the 64 bit version of Win7 RC with 4 Gig and it shows only 3.25 gig "usable". Not sure what's up with that! Mine is an Intel 945 Motherboard with integrated video, however I have thatdisabled in the BIOS and have a dedicated video card. So I'm looking for a solution as well!

Hi Pedro,Chris wrote the right thing. Older mobos reserve a certain space of the physical RAM for I/O-Ports, drivers etc. (This space cannot be freed by disabling unused cards.) This can only be bypassed if the mobo allows you to "remap" the memory, some have a BIOS option for it (f.i. "Memory Remapping Feature" or "Enable/Disable Memory Remap"), some modern boards do it automatically. To put it short, it's a roughly similar method like the access to physical memory beyond the system limits of 640 kB RAM via Expanded/Extended Memory in the old times. That an intented limit for the "usable" part of the physical "available" memorypersists up to these days, seems to be a compatibility issue to prevent careless hw/sw-developers from destabilizing the whole system.Mob. AMD64 3000+, 1 G RAM, Mob. ATIRadeon9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)

Asus BIOS for laptop doesn't have that options. I asked for a BIOS update and i'm waiting for a reply. Nvidia said that in Vista / 7 the OS make the allocation of memory to the GPU, in XP is the GPU that does that. Since it's a OS thing, Microsoft could make a tool to control this memory allocation by changing the formula... Maybe, if Asus make a BIOS update this could be bypassed, lets wait and see. It funny that windows server 2008 doesn't have this problem, i know its a server edition but that feature can be implemented in other edition...

Pedro, I mentioned earlier that I'm having this problem and I've heard occasional reports of others having it as well. Many of these reports, however, are careful to point out that Windows Vista identifies and uses the full amount of memory just fine, and in some cases, this is only a problem with the RC and not the beta. Although occasionally it is a motherboard limitation, I'm almost certain that we'll see far fewer cases of this happening in later releases.-Alex

Alex, I think you are absolutely right. I had the Beta 64 bit version installed on the same box as I now have the RC 64 bit version on. The Beta showed it was using all 4 Gig while the RC now says 3.25 gig is usable. So it must be an issue with just the RC...

Scout - One thing you could check - Right-click on the task bar and bring up Task Manager and click on the Performance tab. On the Physical Memory section - you should see how much RAM the system sees as being installed...

Hi,found this as a contribution on Mark Russinovich's blog, I think it's clarifying the issue: "64-bit OS is not a guarantee. The hardware (CPU and chipset) must also support addressing beyond 32-bit. Nearly all CPUs released in the past few years are 64-bit ready, but there are still several chipsets in use that are hard limited to 32-bit addressing. In such cases, a 64-bit OS can be installed because a 64-bit ready CPU will run it, but system address space is still limited to the 'old' 32-bit standard by the chipset."That means drivers will not be able to address memory beyond the 4 G limit and thus be forced to use a part of the physical memory that is no longer usable by the OS. In those cases, usually only 3 - 3.25 of 4 G will be used by the system, even if 4 G are physically present."Unfortunately, this was all too common until several months ago. Major OEMs like HP, Dell, and others were configuring notebooks (and desktops to a lesser extent) with Vista 64-bit offering up to 4GB RAM, but the chipsets were often the same 'old' 32-bit architecture (Intel 945 Series was one of the more commonly used). This went on for a good year before OEMs began to shift a larger percentage of their product lines toward newer chipsets with larger addressing support. Many OEMs are still shipping notebooks with 32-bit chipsets, but its becoming the exception. So you can't make too many assumptions about the hardware from the OS. If the system hardware can support MORE than 4GB RAM (e.g. 8GB), that is a sure-fire indication the chipset can exceed 32-bit addressing limits. But if the system hardware is advertised to support 4GB (MAX), you'll need to dig deeper and ask more questions. Some companies set an arbitrary support limit at 4GB in marketing specs even though the hardware is capable of supporting more. In other cases, 4GB could be a real limit of the hardware rather than an arbitrary marketing decision." BTW, I wonder why RC would show other values than the Beta. But that's another thing, maybe more than one causes are involved into the issue. Mob. AMD64 3000+, 1 G RAM, Mob. ATIRadeon9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)

The chipset support 4GB of memory according to intel site. If it was a chipset memory it would show more than 3 GB not less. Wolfie, 2943MB total memory...

Well, I'm repeating myself but if you would have gone to the ASUS support site, looking for your model specs, you would have found this link: http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/4GB_Rev1.pdf. Table 3 of this document - that is a white paper from Intel, btw - shows explicitely that Intel 915G Express chipset-based platforms on WinXP x64 allow using at most 3.24 G of physical 4 G memory. Ok, that's for XP 64 but at the time your system was manufactured (2005?) there was no Win7 x64 in sight. And I don't see a way how today's operating systems should bypass limitations from older hardware without disabling most of this hardware. You won't want that. Mob. AMD64 3000+, 1 G RAM, Mob. ATIRadeon9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)

I should add that the usable memory shown also depends from the app that shows it. TaskManager should show more usable RAM, msinfo32 (type into the Windows Orb search) should show less. External memory info apps might show other values as well. (Anyway, this doesn't affect the range of usable memory displayed, slightly below 3 G and something around 3,25 G.). This could be a possible explanation for the RC/Beta differences, too.Mob. AMD64 3000+, 1 G RAM, Mob. ATIRadeon9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)

Sanmartin my chipset is 945PM not 915G is a big difference, if you want to help, please stay focus to the topic and don't talk about other computers

Pedro, excuse me, my fault. Seems that the same ASUS model is sold with different hardware combinations. But one thing is not different between 915 and 945 chipsets (graphics included or not): Both are 32-bit-based and do not allow memory addressing outside the 4 G limit. (See the Intel datasheet for the 945 family if you really like that.) So,most of my quotes from above apply to your system, too.BTW, my only intention was to point out that the OS (Win7 or whatever) is not by default the culprit if"stolen RAM" is an issue.Mob. AMD64 3000+, 1 G RAM, Mob. ATIRadeon9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)

The 945PM chipset allow up to 4GB memory addressability that's a fact. I'm not saying that Win7 or another version is guilty, i'm saying that Microsoft could make something so the user can control the shared system memory as this is controled by the OS. The missing memory is an issue that is solved by throw the laptop away or by updating the BIOS. I'm "fighting" with Asus so they make and release a BIOS update for this problem.