WiFi Card will not find networks when > 2GB RAM

I have two PCI wireless network cards from two different brands, Netgear
WG311V2 and D-Link DWl-G520+.

My Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP2 system has 4GB of RAM.

Neither will detect wireless networks when the system RAM is greater than
2GB.
If I pull out one 2GB stick, it works fine. Put it back in, failure to see
networks.

I tried the Netgear on a Windows 2003 Standard 32 bit SP2 with 4GB of RAM
and it worked ok.

Any help?

--
Dave Harry

Dave Harry wrote:

>
> I have two PCI wireless network cards from two different brands, Netgear
> WG311V2 and D-Link DWl-G520+.
>
> My Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP2 system has 4GB of RAM.
>
> Neither will detect wireless networks when the system RAM is greater
> than 2GB.
> If I pull out one 2GB stick, it works fine. Put it back in, failure to
> see networks.
>
> I tried the Netgear on a Windows 2003 Standard 32 bit SP2 with 4GB of
> RAM and it worked ok.
>
> Any help?
>


Hi,

When you said "Vista Ultimate" and the "Win2K3", did you have those both
on the same physical systems, or are you talking about two different
physical machines?

If the latter, then many the one with Vista has bad memory? Maybe run a
memory test (memtest) on the 4GB RAM?

Jim

smlunatick wrote:
> On Sep 11, 5:32 am, "Dave Harry"
> <DaveHa...@please.keep.replies.in.the.newsgroup> wrote:
>
>>I have two PCI wireless network cards from two different brands, Netgear
>>WG311V2 and D-Link DWl-G520+.
>>
>>My Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP2 system has 4GB of RAM.
>>
>>Neither will detect wireless networks when the system RAM is greater than
>>2GB.
>>If I pull out one 2GB stick, it works fine. Put it back in, failure to see
>>networks.
>>
>>I tried the Netgear on a Windows 2003 Standard 32 bit SP2 with 4GB of RAM
>>and it worked ok.
>>
>>Any help?
>>
>>--
>>Dave Harry
>
>
> All 32 bit versions of Windows will not use the full 4GB of RAM. It
> will limit the RAM available to 3.25 to 3.5 GB.
>
> As previously stated, bad RAM is likely.


Hi,

There is one "kind of" exception to that. Some of the "higher" versions
of 32-bit Windows 2003 Server (e.g., Enterprise and DataCenter, I
think) will recognize memory > 4GB. I run Win2K3 Enterprise on my main
desktop for that reason.

I think that an individual app can't use >3GB, but I use this because
sometimes, when I am doing development, I run a bunch of virtual
machines, and they each take up physical memory (each < 3GB), so this
allows me to run more guests simulataneously (I currently have 6GB in my
machine).

Jim

Hi
I doubt that it has to do with Wireless.
There are probably some problems with the computer and its accommodation of
the memory when the OS is Not capable to recognize all the memory.
Jack (MS, MVP-Networking).

"Dave Harry" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have two PCI wireless network cards from two different brands, Netgear
>WG311V2 and D-Link DWl-G520+.
>
> My Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP2 system has 4GB of RAM.
>
> Neither will detect wireless networks when the system RAM is greater than
> 2GB.
> If I pull out one 2GB stick, it works fine. Put it back in, failure to see
> networks.
>
> I tried the Netgear on a Windows 2003 Standard 32 bit SP2 with 4GB of RAM
> and it worked ok.
>
> Any help?
>
> --
> Dave Harry

"Dave Harry" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I have two PCI wireless network cards from two different brands, Netgear
> WG311V2 and D-Link DWl-G520+.
>
> My Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP2 system has 4GB of RAM.
>
> Neither will detect wireless networks when the system RAM is greater than
> 2GB.
> If I pull out one 2GB stick, it works fine. Put it back in, failure to see
> networks.
>
> I tried the Netgear on a Windows 2003 Standard 32 bit SP2 with 4GB of RAM
> and it worked ok.
>
> Any help?
>
> --
> Dave Harry

Does the wireless driver start at all with > 2 GB? ( do you see it in
device manager?)
Any relevant messages in the event log with > 2 GB?

--pa

"Pavel A." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:77AE0983-1875-4DA7-9760-(E-Mail Removed)...

> Does the wireless driver start at all with > 2 GB? ( do you see it in
> device manager?)
> Any relevant messages in the event log with > 2 GB?
>
> --pa

The *full* 4GB of RAM is visible to the Vista 32 system and the 2003
Standard Edition which uses PAE.

Device manager reports "The device is working properly", supposedly. Only it
cannot detect any networks.

I think it's a driver fault with Vista and Windows 7. When I use 2003 on the
same hardware it's ok to 4GB.

Technically there is only an XP driver supplied, but it works also perfectly
on Vista =< 2GB, which is infuriating.
2G is fine. If I put even 2.5GB of RAM, no good. There must be a way to fool
it to thinking the system has less.

--
Dave Harry

"Dave Harry" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message news:##(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Pavel A." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:77AE0983-1875-4DA7-9760-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>> Does the wireless driver start at all with > 2 GB? ( do you see it in
>> device manager?)
>> Any relevant messages in the event log with > 2 GB?
>>
>> --pa
>
> The *full* 4GB of RAM is visible to the Vista 32 system and the 2003
> Standard Edition which uses PAE.
>
> Device manager reports "The device is working properly", supposedly. Only
> it cannot detect any networks.
>
> I think it's a driver fault with Vista and Windows 7. When I use 2003 on
> the same hardware it's ok to 4GB.
> Technically there is only an XP driver supplied, but it works also
> perfectly on Vista =< 2GB, which is infuriating.

Agree, this looks like a driver fault.
However, it still is a question, is the culprit the WinXP driver, or the
Win7/Vista
component that adapts the XP wireless drivers to NT6 "native wi-fi" mode.
Unless both D-Link and Netgear cards are really made by same OEM,
this would mean a problem on Microsoft side.

> 2G is fine. If I put even 2.5GB of RAM, no good. There must be a way to
> fool it to thinking the system has less.

Yes, there is a bootloader option that hides specified amount of RAM from
Windows
( it may be still visible to the BIOS...)

Regards,
--pa