I Installed new ram on Vista home 32bit. It says I now have 6GB, I thought...

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pogo730

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...the limit on Vista 32bit was 4GB? So I've been reading online that the 32 bit version of Windows Vista (I'm using home edition with service pack 1 installed) can only support a maximum of 4GB of memory.

Recently I decided to upgrade my HP desktop so I ordered two 2GB chips so that I could go up to 4GB (which is the limit I read Vista has.) When I opened my PC up, I found that I had two 1GB chips already installed along with 2 empty RAM slots. Since I had the extra slots... I thought why not try installing the two new 2GB chips and left the previous 2 chips installed. The computer booted up fine and upon going to the control panel and looking under "System" it says I now have 6GB of RAM. So what's the deal? Is it not using all of it and just saying that it's there, was the information I read about the 4GB limit wrong, or did service pack 1 allow for more?

Any insight into this would be helpful (only from people who arn't just guessing please.) Thanks in advance!

PC: HP Pavilion d4790y with
2.4ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
 
Under normal circumstances I'd say that you were looking in the BIOS, and the BIOS detected the full 6GB of RAM. However, you're in the OS itself. I suspect Microsoft put out an update that allows the system to detect the full amount of RAM installed, but 32bit Vista and XP can't use more than 3.3GB installed.

I recommend you upgrade to Vista x64 to get the full use out of your 6GB of RAM. If you installed Vista from a retail box version, it should have a copy of x32 and x64 included. OEM copies are one or the other.
 
The limit of use in 32Bit OS remains as is 4GB.

as for vista it is only showing what you physically have rather what it will use.
 
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