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TheSandman2236

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 11, 2008
255
0
Atlanta, GA
I'm running a brand new Late 2012 i7 iMac with Fusion Drive, 16GB of ram, etc. I just put a bootcamp partition with WIndows 7 Pro x64 on the Fusion Drive today and after all the drivers and updates were applied the system does not allow usage of the full 16GB installed in the machine (this was also the case prior to driver/updates installation). Can anyone supply a solution or a reason why this is the case?
 

FreemanW

macrumors 6502
Sep 10, 2012
483
93
The Real Northern California
Aren't some versions of Windows 7 RAM limited. You may need ultimate or pro to go above 8gb of ram?

No.

The RAM limitation in Windows has to do with 32-bit versus 64-bit. The limit of addressable memory in 32-bit is 4GB. Because of the way in which Windows uses memory and begins addressing memory for processes, it works down from 4GB, so a 32-bit Windows installation with 4GB of memory may show anywhere between 3.5GB down to 2.8GB of system memory.

The OP is very likely facing a limitation of the BootCamp environment in which he has Windows installed and running.

I've never had the occasion to play with BootCamp, so that is as far as I can speculate.
 

WilliamG

macrumors G3
Mar 29, 2008
9,922
3,800
Seattle
No issues here with 32GB RAM 2012 iMac running Windows 7 64bit.
 

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Bobbymoon

macrumors newbie
Jan 23, 2013
7
0
I'm running a brand new Late 2012 i7 iMac with Fusion Drive, 16GB of ram, etc. I just put a bootcamp partition with WIndows 7 Pro x64 on the Fusion Drive today and after all the drivers and updates were applied the system does not allow usage of the full 16GB installed in the machine (this was also the case prior to driver/updates installation). Can anyone supply a solution or a reason why this is the case?


I have the exact same machine and problem.

I have two different brands of RAM (stock ram & Crucial ), could this be the reason maybe?
 

kpgh554

macrumors regular
Dec 29, 2011
201
1
iver england
I have the exact same machine and problem.

I have two different brands of RAM (stock ram & Crucial ), could this be the reason maybe?

It's a windows thing as my brothers have pcs and they get same, windows only uses 8gb even after they've added 16gb to their pc's. i think pc's use virtual memory mostly why they put on hdd an unallocated space to use as virtual memory. that my thoughts i maybe wrong.
 

WilliamG

macrumors G3
Mar 29, 2008
9,922
3,800
Seattle
It's a windows thing as my brothers have pcs and they get same, windows only uses 8gb even after they've added 16gb to their pc's. i think pc's use virtual memory mostly why they put on hdd an unallocated space to use as virtual memory. that my thoughts i maybe wrong.

How are you determining that Windows is only using 8GB? I disabled all virtual memory in Windows 7 64bit, since 32GB is more than I would ever need.
 
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drambuie

macrumors 6502a
Feb 16, 2010
751
1
I'm running a brand new Late 2012 i7 iMac with Fusion Drive, 16GB of ram, etc. I just put a bootcamp partition with WIndows 7 Pro x64 on the Fusion Drive today and after all the drivers and updates were applied the system does not allow usage of the full 16GB installed in the machine (this was also the case prior to driver/updates installation). Can anyone supply a solution or a reason why this is the case?

Type msinfo32.exe in the start menu. It should give the physical and virtual memory status.
 

Nuke61

macrumors 6502
Jan 18, 2013
325
1
Columbia, SC
A *possible* solution... as a user with Administrator rights, run 'msconfig'

Select Boot tab, and then Advanced Options, then Maximum Memory. If it's checked, uncheck it and do a cold reboot.
 

jenzjen

macrumors 68000
Aug 20, 2010
1,734
6
I have 2 machines that show my full RAM under W7 professional x64 - 24Gb and 16Gb - so I doubt it is a Windows limitation, as long as you're running a 64bit version.
 
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