32-bit windows 2k3 guest hangs with more than ~3.5GB memory

[Sterling Windmill <sterling@ampx.net>]

I am running a compiled kvm-83 and have tried both a 2.6.18 and 2.6.24 64-bit kernel on a system with an Intel Q6600 CPU and 8GB of ram.

My 32-bit Windows 2003 guest works properly with 3.5GB of memory allocated to it and four virtual CPUs.

Here is the command I am using to start the guest:

/usr/local/kvm/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 -m 3584 -smp 4 -drive file=/kvm/termserver1.kvm,if=scsi,cache=writeback,boot=on \
-daemonize -vnc :1 \
-boot c \
-serial none \
-parallel none \
-net nic,model=virtio -net tap,script=/kvm/qemu-bridge-ifup

The machine is using a raw disk image and a simple script to create a tap device and add it to an existing bridge.

When I try to give the machine 4GB of memory or more, it hangs during the Windows boot process (when the Windows logo appears above a progress bar). There is very little cpu usage for the kvm process on the host at this point and no disk I/O. I have to manually quit the VM, adjust the memory back down to 3.5GB or slightly higher, and restart.

Does KVM not currently support PAE for 32-bit guests?

Thanks in advance,
Sterling Windmill