Put 1gb of ram in a computer, shows up as 800mb???

TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
edited November 2008 in Hardware
Ok, I was doing some work on friends computer, and she has windows vista with only 512mb of ram (damn toshiba)

I had an extra 512mb of notebook ram laying around from an old ram upgrade, that happened to be the right ram for her laptop.

So I installed it for her, but her computer is telling me that she only has 800 something mb of ram. Curious, I take out the 512mb stick that I just put in, and check and it says 424....

So even her original 512mb stick, only shows up as 424mb

I have never seen this happen before.... my laptop used to have 1gb and it showed up as 1024mb, I now have 2gb and it shows up as 1.96gb of ram....

can anyone tell me why this would happen?
just curious because I have never seen it happen before.

Comments

  • CycloniteCyclonite Tampa, Florida Icrontian
    edited November 2008
    Allocated video memory, I'd imagine.
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited November 2008
    weird that I have never seen this before
  • bullzisniprbullzisnipr Topeka, KS
    edited November 2008
    You should be able to change the amount of memory the system allocates for VRAM in the BIOS. Some systems allow it, some don't. In a laptop, I'd run a lower amount like 64MB or so because chances are she's probably not gaming. Something to look into.
  • edited November 2008
    Yep, integrated graphics use system memory for their frame buffer and that is why the system shows less memory than is actually installed. If the laptop had a separate video subsection with it's own dedicated memory this wouldn't happen. Like bullz said, you may or may not be able to set the amount used in bios, depending on the way the bios is set up.
  • edited November 2008
    interesting... how come there's RAM allocated to Graphics on 2GB and when on 1GB it doesn't happen?

    is it just because there's alot spare?
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