"darklex" <darklex@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote ...
> I thought one of the key selling points of a 64bit OS was that it could
> address more than 4GB? I recall XP64 made a big deal of that.

You're right - one of the key selling points of a 64bit OS *is* that it
could address more than 4GB.

"Carey Frisch [MVP]" wrote:
> Windows Vista design parameters can accommodate up to 4GB RAM.

And I have to respectfully disagree with Carey here: "Windows Vista design
parameters can accommodate up to 4GB RAM" is just wrong. 64-bit operating
systems can use virtual memory addresses up to 8TB in size; but x64 XP (and
I believe Vista is the same) are designed for a maximum of 128 GB of RAM.
See (for example):
http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...5/mem-mgmt.doc

However, taking advantage of the full 4GB-8GB of physical RAM requires a
co-ordinated effort by operating system, chipset and BIOS. It would be true
to say that most current chipsets and BIOSs have design parameters which can
accommodate up to 4GB RAM, max. Fortunately, the MSI PN6 is able to use 8GB
of physical RAM, altough it may only report 7GB in practice (see page 2-8 of
the motherboard's manual). So in broad terms, yes: your system should work
okay.

Why you are getting STOP errors, will depend on exactly which STOP (aka
"BSOD") you are getting. You say "Vista BSODs with the standard error,
0x00007 etc etc" - there are actually more than 50 different STOP 0xhhhhhhhh
errors! None is "standard". More details about the exact error you're seeing
would help diagnose the exact nature of the problem. Does Windows Error
Reporting send the information about your crashes to Microsoft, after you
reboot? Online Crash Analysis (OCA, see http://oca.microsoft.com) is
probably the easisest way to get a detailed analysis of the crash. Or you
could open a Service Request with Microsoft PSS.

(Or use the Windows Debuuging Tools -
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtoo...g/default.mspx - to analyse
the memory dump yourself to see what failed).

While your troubleshooting has confirmed there's definitely some kind of
problem on your system, it is not caused by any fundamental inability of x64
Vista to handle > 2GB or 4GB of RAM (well, apart from the 929777 issue ...
and there may be similar new bugs, waiting in the wings). It could just as
easily be something that requires a BIOS update, or the like.

Hope this helps,
Andrew

PS you've seen http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935806, right?