Vista Screwed up Memory

[Murakawa]

Hey, I just bought a new acer laptop with 1 Gig of ram, however vista control panel system properties says i only have 766MB. Is this just what it's reading it at and the rest is taken up by vista, or did they send me too little ram?

Thanks for help.

[willw9]

You should really have 2GB RAM to run Vista anyway.

[LuckyTxGuy]

That replay was totally unhelpful to the OP, especially since the comments aren't 100% true.

1 GB will run Vista Home Basic just fine. More than just fine, I'll go as far as to say great, if you are using it for normal basic computer stuff. I've ordered around 6 Vista machines in the last 45 days for customers, all having 1 GB of RAM and they run great. Can I tell the difference when I'm running my 2 GB Vista laptop? Sure, but 2 GB is not "needed" for email, music, movies, web browsing, basic poker etc.

I just want to point out that the 2 GB line of thought is a myth. I compare it to XP...... XP will run just fine with 512 MB for basic stuff. However, 1 GB will make an XP machine smoke. Vista 1 GB is fine....2 GB smokes! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

To answer the OP's question, I have a very strong feeling the reason you are only seeing 766 MB is because you have a 256 MB integrated video card. 256 + 766 = 1022. 1 GB = 1024 MB. So your video card is using 256 MB of your RAM. I'm willing to bet money that's what is going on.

Now....I just gave my little spill above about not "needing" 2 GB, however the difference in 766 MB and 1 GB is 25%, that's alot in the scheme of things. If there was any way for you to cheaply upgrade your RAM from 1 GB to 1.5 or 2 GB that would be very beneficial and cause a noticeable improvement in your machines performance IMO.

- Jason

[CT11]

IGD really should NOT be using 256mb of ram. If it is you should change it in your BIOS. somewhere in the setup options you should be able to choose the amount of memory it takes. 64mb or even 32mb is appropriate not 256. It may help if you can tell us exactly what computer you have though at the very least we need to know if you have discrete graphics or integrated graphics.

[Murakawa]

Hmm... i have a feeling that you're right about the video card. So i have to change this in the bios? Sure windows doesn't have something to let me do it?

And I'll probably upgrade ram in the future, but I just spent a bunch of money on a new computer, not interested in upgrading quite yet.

[centgas]

I ordered 4gb RAM and it says I only have 3gb?

[ADBjester]

[ QUOTE ]
I ordered 4gb RAM and it says I only have 3gb?

[/ QUOTE ]

This one is definitely the video card shadowing into your RAM.

The 32-bit version of Vista (or of any Windows OS) can only access a total of 4 GB of memory.... including video RAM.

Normally, windows "shadows" your video card's memory into the 4 GB address space. Let's say, for example, that you had only 2 GB of system RAM (for simplicity, from 0 to 2 GB). Your 512 MB video card's RAM might then be set to use the addresses from 2 GB to 3 GB (however much DRAM your video card has, it needs to shadow double that), in which case you'd still have full access to all 2 GB of your system RAM plus the video RAM.

Now do the same thing in a 4 GB system. System ram occupies addresses from 0 to 4 GB. The video card RAM *must* also locate itself under 4 GB because 4 GB is the largest number that can be represented in a 32-bit system. In order to make your video card go, then, Windows (even XP, this isn't just a Vista thing) must borrow the addresses used by system RAM for video RAM instead. Thus, if you have 4 GB of physical RAM and a 512 MB video card, your RAM map will look like this:

[0... SYSTEM RAM .... 3 GB][3GB ... video RAM .... 4 GB]

The system RAM that would have been between 3 GB and 4 GB is sacrificed to video, and is IGNORED by the operating system. You can never use more than 4 GB total address space for combined system and video RAM on a 32 bit system. This has always been the case on any version of Windows, but only with Vista, where users are commonly installing 4 GB of RAM, has it become a common issue.

There is only one way to have access to every last byte of your 4 GB of system RAM, and that is to install the x64 version (64-bit) of Vista rather than the 32-bit system. (You either have to buy that separately, or have purchased Vista Ultimate.)

My Vista x64 system has 4 GB of system RAM plus a 768 MB video card, but because Vista (and the video drivers! That's crucial, too!) are 64-bit, the video RAM can be mapped above 4 GB so that I don't have to sacrifice any of the system RAM to allow the video ram to be addressable.

Since you say you "ordered 4 GB of RAM" I'm guessing you bought a complete system, new with Vista, in which case you're screwed. There's no upgrade path to get from 32-bit to 64-bit Vista. You have to start from scratch. Your vendor should have warned you about this when you ordered 32-bit Vista and 4 GB of RAM with a 512 MB video card.

I hope it wasn't premium RAM.....

Jester

[centgas]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I ordered 4gb RAM and it says I only have 3gb?

[/ QUOTE ]

This one is definitely the video card shadowing into your RAM.

The 32-bit version of Vista (or of any Windows OS) can only access a total of 4 GB of memory.... including video RAM.

Normally, windows "shadows" your video card's memory into the 4 GB address space. Let's say, for example, that you had only 2 GB of system RAM (for simplicity, from 0 to 2 GB). Your 512 MB video card's RAM might then be set to use the addresses from 2 GB to 3 GB (however much DRAM your video card has, it needs to shadow double that), in which case you'd still have full access to all 2 GB of your system RAM plus the video RAM.

Now do the same thing in a 4 GB system. System ram occupies addresses from 0 to 4 GB. The video card RAM *must* also locate itself under 4 GB because 4 GB is the largest number that can be represented in a 32-bit system. In order to make your video card go, then, Windows (even XP, this isn't just a Vista thing) must borrow the addresses used by system RAM for video RAM instead. Thus, if you have 4 GB of physical RAM and a 512 MB video card, your RAM map will look like this:

[0... SYSTEM RAM .... 3 GB][3GB ... video RAM .... 4 GB]

The system RAM that would have been between 3 GB and 4 GB is sacrificed to video, and is IGNORED by the operating system. You can never use more than 4 GB total address space for combined system and video RAM on a 32 bit system. This has always been the case on any version of Windows, but only with Vista, where users are commonly installing 4 GB of RAM, has it become a common issue.

There is only one way to have access to every last byte of your 4 GB of system RAM, and that is to install the x64 version (64-bit) of Vista rather than the 32-bit system. (You either have to buy that separately, or have purchased Vista Ultimate.)

My Vista x64 system has 4 GB of system RAM plus a 768 MB video card, but because Vista (and the video drivers! That's crucial, too!) are 64-bit, the video RAM can be mapped above 4 GB so that I don't have to sacrifice any of the system RAM to allow the video ram to be addressable.

Since you say you "ordered 4 GB of RAM" I'm guessing you bought a complete system, new with Vista, in which case you're screwed. There's no upgrade path to get from 32-bit to 64-bit Vista. You have to start from scratch. Your vendor should have warned you about this when you ordered 32-bit Vista and 4 GB of RAM with a 512 MB video card.

I hope it wasn't premium RAM.....

Jester

[/ QUOTE ]

Well in that case thank you very much Dell...

My graphics cards is nVidia 8800... 768mb.

Can I just get another copy of vista? God I'm tempted to go back to XP...