why does XP say i have less ram than what i have installe??

Question

i used to have 512 ram in my laptop but windows always said i had 480 of ram avaliale . when i had my pc healthcheck done yesterday at pc world i brough more ram to bring my ram up to 1024 now windows says i have 960?
does windows keep some ram to itself? or have pcworld messed up?

Answer 1

Your laptop has "Dynamically Allocated RAM"



This means that the system shares RAM with the graphics card.



You had 32 Mb allocated to the graphics card, now you have 64 Mb allocated

Answer 2

Check your BIOS configuration, it may have defaulted to a lower MHz bus speed (because of a short, an error or a static discharge) or your CMOS battery may need to be replaced. There is no harm in looking into your BIOS settings, just don't change any settings you don't understand. To go to your BIOS, just hit F1,F2 or DEL (it depends on your Motherboard) when you restart your computer and before WINDOWS loads.. Reset your FSB (front side bus) to it's correct speed. I suspect it may have gone from 133 to 100 or whatever your ram speed is to the next lowest level. Good luck.

Answer 3

well i have same thing but its normal cause the graphics card takes some off ur ram and its perfectly normal dont worry about it :)

and btw smart move for 512 and 1024 rams that really makes life easier

perfect speed :)

Answer 4

You will need alot of tools for this project. The tools you need are as follows. Acouple of screwdrivers a crowbar, a tire iron, and my favorite a hammer. First thing you must do is turn off the power to your pc and move it out to the center of the room. The second thing you will need to do is take your tire iron and screwdrivers and pry open the tower. Dont be gentle when doing this, the computer wont die that easy. After that is done you will need to take your screw driver and hammer and start pounding new codes on your hard drive. dont be gentle when doing this, nothing will go wrong when doing this process. After that is done take your hammer and gently tap your mother board to make sure it is in working order. After that is done you need to check your video and sound cards. Take your tire iron and hammer and hit them with mild force. After that is done put your tower back together by pounding the cover back on with your hammer with alot of force. There you go your done and you have the codes for your problem on your hard drive. Problem solved have fun.

Answer 5

it is normal as i am hardware and networking engineer i know this

the

the cause is the graphic card it is the eaten energy is used by the graphic card show is showing your 512 ram to 480 you dont have to be worry about this

bye for further information

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Answer 6

Possibly shared with Video Memory.



32 megs would be a normal amount of Video Memory.

Answer 7

many reasones

1- u have buit-in display driver using ur ram as vga ram

2- if u r using more one slots of ram, maybe u r using a differant speed

3- a configuration for ram in ur bios is wrong

4- the big number of ram came from using ur hard-drive in paging

Answer 8

My question, is why did you turn from an OS that develop into super (working?) to a minimum of one that is.... older. some thing on your laptop is restricting the RAM. and likewise, in case you have 2GB of kingston, and a million x 1GB of Hitachi, that could desire to be 3 GB, no longer 4GB besides??? My guess is it someway disabled the a million x 1GB of Hitachi RAM.

Answer 9

You havent mentioned whether you have a GPU installed on ur machine, If you dont, the missing RAM might be used for video memory.

Answer 10

actually...your total ram is usually being shared of by both your O.S and your video card.. like if you have a total of 512mb ram and your window says its only 480...then 32mb of ram has been shared by your agp or your video card.. please note that video card always gets a portion of your ram.

Answer 11

what you actully have in the system and whats available are to different stories. right click on my computer and go to properties on that screen it should tell you your processor speed and the real amount of ram in your system

Answer 12

memory storage always says that. my 512mb flash drive only has 488mb, my 256mb only has 230 something mb. same thing goes on with my hard drive, they lied to us.

Answer 13

what does the bios say?