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[Joel]

Thanks guys!
I appreciate all the input, and advice you have given.
I was a printing press operator for 26 years, running some presses 70 ft long and 8 ft high.
My first experience with computers was, one press I ran had one that used a program that controlled a print station that added the UPC codes to tracking labels for a major trucking company.
We didn't have one at home until 2002.
I was more intimidated trying surf the net on the computer than by the presses I ran.
We recently bought a new computer at Best Buy, and before the purchase I knew I wanted one with as much memory and all as possible.
I had heard some bad stuff about Vista, and I ask the man there about it not being so good.
He said Windows 7 was the attempt to fix Vista problems of dragging computers down.
I ended up getting the 8GB and 1TB unit with windows 7, its a great machine.

Thanks again, I do know more than I did
Joel

[Dave in Tenn]

That's the way to do it, Joel.  Get the biggest numbers you can afford so it will be obsolete a couple of months later than otherwise.   

My music computer had 1/8 your RAM and probably 1/4 your processor speed, yet digitized and wrote 24bit .wav files via a stock no-frills sound-card without a single hiccup, then held as many tracks as I ever needed in my Digital Audio Workstation for mixing and processing.  You won't strain yours at all. 

As long as you're not trying to build your own machine, let the manufacturer worry about whether all the parts work together.

I still can't program a VCR, however.

[Joel]

Thanks Dave, sounds like good advice to me.
Joel

[Joel]

I would just like to add here,
Thanks Dennis! for all you do, I can see you are a gifted man.
And I know your area of expertise makes things a lot EASIER for us ALL.

Joel

[daywalker]

Which version of windows vista?? I have the home version.
Is it better to get windows 7 and skip vista?

Yes. Windows 7 is basically Vista w/ Service Pack 3... There's no reason to get Vista... Just get 7...


IT Administrator talkin' here 

[Akira329]

Hey Joel,
What kind of programs are you running to need that much ram??
Are you doing any graphic work or gaming???
I would love to have that much memory and quad core processor!!

[G. Driggs]

Hi Antaiwan, there is some info about your memory problem here:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/03/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram.html

'Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM?'

Here is a quote

"In the absence of the /PAE switch, the Windows memory manager is limited to a 4 GB physical address space. Most of that address space is filled with RAM, but not all of it. Memory-mapped devices (such as your video card) will use some of that physical address space, as will the BIOS ROMs. After all the non-memory devices have had their say, there will be less than 4GB of address space available for RAM below the 4GB physical address boundary."

Basically what this says is that if you have 4gb of ram and say maybe a video card or sound card with ram in it then they will use up some of that physical address space and you will not see all your 4gb of ram. The 4gb of ram share this physical address space with other devices that have their own ram. So I dont think it is an hardware problem, but an x86/32 bit problem as others here have said. I had the same problem once and after one of my video cards and sound card died then was I able to see all 4gb's of my ram. You might be able to see all your ram with a hack, but your mileage may vary. Here is a link to that hack.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366796%28VS.85%29.aspx

If your willing to upgrade then a 64bit operating system might be the way to go. Also try enabling DEP which might enable that /pae switch.

Hope this helps.

G.Driggs

[G. Driggs]

I ended up getting the 8GB and 1TB unit with windows 7, its a great machine.

Dang Joel that is quite the machine you have there, nice.

[Joel]

Hey Akira 329!
Like I said, I was a printing pressman for years.
I had, but not so much now, a lot of use in the graphic area.
My wife really wanted a new computer, we share this one
The store I mentioned had a sale going on with components they put together, so I took advantage of it, with the exception of the monitor that has built in speakers, at the same price. They didn't have the one they chose in stock that day.

Joel

[Akira329]

When I open my boot.ini file I'm given this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Where do I enter?:

Enabling PAE

Windows automatically enables PAE if DEP is enabled on a computer that supports hardware-enabled DEP, or if the computer is configured for hot-add memory devices in memory ranges beyond 4 GB. If the computer does not support hardware-enabled DEP or is not configured for hot-add memory devices in memory ranges beyond 4 GB, PAE must be explicitly enabled.

To explicitly enable PAE, use the following BCDEdit /set command to set the pae boot entry option:

bcdedit /set [{ID}] pae ForceEnable
IF DEP is enabled, PAE cannot be disabled. Use the following BCDEdit /set commands to disable both DEP and PAE:

bcdedit /set [{ID}] nx AlwaysOff
bcdedit /set [{ID}] pae ForceDisable
Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP/2000:  To enable PAE, use the /PAE switch in the Boot.ini file. To disable PAE, use the /NOPAE switch. To disable DEP, use the /EXECUTE switch.

Need some help!
Antaiwan

[G. Driggs]

Quote from
http://www.tipandtrick.net/2008/how-to-enable-pae-in-x86-32-bit-windows-server-2003-and-2000-to-use-large-4gb-or-more-ram-memory/

"To enable PAE in Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 (and Windows XP), append the /PAE switch to the end of the line of operating system in the Boot.ini file. To disable PAE, use the /NOPAE switch. The Boot.ini normally located in the root folder (i.e. C:\) with Read-Only and Hidden attributes, which are required to be removed before the file can be edited.

For example,

Original Boot.ini:

    [boot loader]
    timeout=0
    default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
    [operating systems]
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT=”Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server”
    /fastdetect

Change the Boot.ini to become:

    [boot loader]
    timeout=0
    default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
    [operating systems]
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT=”Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server”
    /fastdetect /PAE

For Bootcfg command, use:

bootcfg /raw "/pae" /A /ID 1

Restart the computer after modification to make the change effective.

Note that even with PAE enabled, there is still memory limit imposed by the operating system itself. The table below list the maximum memory support with PAE enabled for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. Most 32-bit client based Windows operating system, such as Windows XP and Windows Vista (see way to use large memory of more than 4GB in 32-bit Windows Vista), has OS level limit that restricts the maximum amount of memory able to be used to 4GB."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In your boot.ini file on the last line where it says "/fastdetect" you would modify it to look like this "/fastdetect /PAE" with out the quotes. You should be able to right click the boot.ini file and open and edit with notepad. Dont forget to remove "read only attributes" to be able to modify the boot.ini file.

I dont know if it will work, as I have never done it before. Like I said I was only able to see all my 4gb ram after my video card and sound card died, thus freeing up space in the "physical address space".

Keep in mind that this "boot.ini" file is what your computer needs to boot into windows properly, so if that gets messed up you might have a hard time booting. I have personally messed up my boot file on vista many times trying to get linux to work in a dual boot environment and had to learn the hard way on how to fix it. So if something goes wrong then you should be able to boot from your Windows xp disc and repair it.

It could also be a faulty ram module like George (aqr) said, so double check to see if you bios can see all 4 gigs of ram first. If your bios doesn't see all 4 gigs, then that either means a bad ram module or an improperly seated ram module.
You can access the bios by pressing f8 or f10 repeatedly during boot process as soon as the computer is powering on.

Hope this helps, and let me know how it went.

G.Driggs

[Akira329]

Yeah I figured thats what I had to type in.
Not sure if I want to try this yet till I back up my files.

I went into bios setup and its definitely reading all 4 1gb memory modules.
So this might solve the problem but will try when I backup my files.
I'm no stranger to reinstalling if I have too or things just went that bad.

How would I fix it anyway if I made a backup copy of the boot.ini file???

Thanks for the help G. Driggs
Antaiwan

[G. Driggs]

Here is a link that will show you, step by step how to repair a damaged or missing boot.ini file in XP.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/repairbootini.htm

Follow the links within that link I gave you. I have done something similar to this with vista, and it works. Just make sure that your pc is configured to boot from a cd, you can do that from within the bios.

Thats a good idea to back up your files, this is another thing I also had to learn the hard way. I'm always messing with stuff on my pc, and I've learned alot through trial and error. As long as you have a good image backup, you can always restore to what it was before you started messing with important things.

Editing the boot.ini file shouldn't altar any other files you have on your pc, it is just messing it up can cause boot errors. It is a very easy fix if you follow those instructions.

Your very welcome Antaiwan, I love helping others with their computers problems. People are always coming to me for help here in my little Eskimo village. It seems everyone has a computer these days, and I found out that Alaska has one of the highest amount of people that are connected to the internet per capita then anywhere else in the USA. The sad thing is that we probably have the slowest internet speeds than anywhere else in the USA as well. But I hear that might be changing, I sure hope so.

G.Driggs

[Joel]

Here's something I hadn't thought about concerning hard drives--
I was watching a local news station the other night, and they were talking about the large multifunction copiers.
They said that the copiers used in a lot of businesses such as hospitals, lawyer, doctor, and numerous offices.
Could be hacked into, and every copy made on the copier could be retrieved just like on a computer hard drive.
So those type of hard drives need to be destroyed if they are going to be trashed or resold.
That gave me something to think about

Joel