Ron Schenone

Windows Vista – Where's My RAM?

Posted by on Aug 19, 2007 | 29 Comments

Though the problem is not only with Windows Vista, the following question by a reader named Ann, still shows some of the confusion of how and where physical RAM is used and whether 1 GB of RAM for Vista Home Premium is enough. She stated in her recent comment:

Hi!

I’m pretty much a computer novice when it comes to specs. Hope you can help!

I just bought a notebook with the following:

  • AMD Turion 64 mobile technology MK-38 (2.2 GHz, 512KB L@ cashe)
  • Up to 256MB ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 hyperMemory
  • 160GB HDD
  • 1GB DDR2

The above are the specs given on the sticker. It also has Windows Vista Premium

I’m confused, when I check the computer stats, i.e. RAM, processor, etc. the RAM displays as 768MB. I specifically bought this notebook based on the 1GB. Why is it showing a different amount of RAM than what I paid for?

Do I need to be concerned? Who should I contact? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

My reply to Ann was this:

Hello Ann,
Your video card is using 256MB of your physically installed RAM. You therefore have 1 GB [1,024] minus the 256 = 768MB available for the operating system and other programs.

Personally I believe that the sweet spot for Vista Home Premium and above is around 2GB. However, not knowing what you are doing on your system beside the casual email and Web surfing, 1GB may meet your specific needs.

I would do two things. First I would use the system and see how the performance is for you. If it meets your needs OK, stay with 1G. Second, I would wait until Vista SP1 becomes available, which should be fairly soon since it is currently being tested. Microsoft is making performance enhancements, which may just help in the way your system performs.

If your performance still does not meet your needs, then consider kicking the system up to 2GB or more.

I hope this helps you. I’m also going to post an article since this seems to be an issue for many who have just bought new machines.

Regards, Ron

So if you have anything you would like to add and share with Ann, please feel free to provide your comments.

[tags]vista, ram, home premium, where is my ram[/tags]

  • Shiloh L. Augustine

    Now this doesn’t compute! The vid card has it’s own RAM, so why would it take space in the PC’s RAM? In fact, I battled with the HP rep on this. I think it’s time some things are cleared up! I have been on computers for six years now and every one of those Desktops have given a higher than RAM count of memory. Because it has counted the virtual memory as well. And it never has affected my RAM numbers while I am on the computer with program freezing jobs! So then, if I have one gig of RAM, then why does my laptop say 958 megs of RAM? I also am told that I have to pay for a MS WORKS 2007 for my Laptop as i am only allowed a 90 day temp version of the programs. Which means, I’m paying way too much for the one program that I use continually and had always…, previously been a part of the OS! MS WORD!
    It is my assertion that Microsoft is no longer worried about it’s customer base and has come to consider us as slaves to the system. Therefore, they deem it their right to remove every dollar from our pockets in order to simply enrich their corporate coffers! I think some other companies start to consider using other OS’sas there will not be a future for Microsooft any more. My pocket will carry a MS Firewall! DIE you Robber Baron’s!

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello Shiloh L. Augustine,
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts and comments with us. They are appreciated.
    Ron

  • kiko

    AFAIK MS Word has NEVER been part of the OS – only part of Office..on the other hand Wordpad ( a measly stripped out bastard child) has always come free with MS os’s…probably to get you frustrated enough to buy Office…however MS WORKS is often offered for free with a new pc ( esp Dell ) – and it is the bastard child of Office minus everything you actually need to do….however Open office is free and if you like so is Star Office ( usually around $80 or so ) from the Google pack…they all work pretty much the same….

    as to the video card having it’s own memeory – newer cards have both their own and the possibility of using system ram – my own pc ( a Dell) has 4 GB of ram – but only 3.25 show for the OS as the video card ( NVidia 8600 GT – 256 MB ) – also can borrow 788 MB from the system – efffectively giving me about 1 GB of video memory ( Aero runs dandy) and still leaving lots for the system…my advice – whatever people recommend for ram – double it and then enjoy….ram is cheap these days so ordering more ( or adding ) is not a major expense like it used to be…most MS OS’s are coded for computers that aren’t built yet but around the corner – Vista is no different…Linux howerever goes the opposite – I used to be able to run live CD’s of almost all Linux flavors on my old Dell XP laptop – now not a single one will run on this new Dell – well they run but no network etc…if you can’t get online what’s the point….so just when this one is getting old I *may* be able to run Linux on it and might just do that if the next MS OS comes in 27 flavors and goes to $999 for the *Ultimate* version…;-)….

  • http://www.i1t2b3.de Tobias Migge

    Shiloh’s wrong. The grapic card doesn’t have (much) own memory. “Up to 256MB ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 hyperMemory” means that the graphic card will use up to 256 MB of the RAM for it’s needs, depending on the settings in the BIOS. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermemory if you don’t believe me.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello Tobias Migge,
    It has been a practice for many years to use the system memory to power the video display especially on inexpensive systems or laptops. One can add there own video card with its own memory and disable the on board video.This than frees up ALL of the system memory for use by the OS. As I originally stated in my response to Ann, it is normally possible to limit the amount of memory used via the BIOS and lower the resources used by the video display. Depending on what you are doing on the system, i.e. not playing games, you can drop the video memory down to 64MB or lower in most cases.

    Thanks for your reply and comments. You are correct.

    Regards, Ron

  • NomenNescio

    Actually it doesn’t even have a separate graphics card, the X300 GPU of the Xpress 1100 chipset is integrated to the motherboard.

    If one doesn’t play games and is willing to disable Aero or just use the windows classic style (Windows 98 or 2000 look) then reducing the amount of memory used by the GPU to 32, 16 or 8 MB would be perfectly adequate (depending on screen resolution ofcourse). Disable aero in the first place would be a very good idea with that little memory anyway.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello kiko and NomenNescio,
    Thanks you both for your comments as well. Hopefully from what all of us have said, this will clarify the situation for those who are experiencing this problem.

    I appreciate you both taking the time to respond with your comments.

    Ron

  • http://woolf2k.spaces.live.com/ woolf2k

    hold it hold it!

    that doesn’t make sense…

    the cpu has 4GB of addressable space…. now why would it decide…HEY! we have 1GB of memory lets swipe some of it for our needs instead of using the remaining 3G of addressable space…

    the only scenerio i see that happening, is if, the card does NOT have video memory and is sharing 256MB but that wasn’t mentioned. or is that what hypermemory is now days… since shared memory has such a bad taste in consumers’ mouths?

    btw: shared memory blows… if your concerned about performance specially in games you’ll want to dump that shared memory graphics card and get yourself a graphics card with it’s own memory and you’ll be freeing up that 256MB for application use.

    I’d go that route before adding more memory to the system.

    GL!

    doh! it’s a notebook, hmmm.. might not be able to upgrade card …so your stuck with it… and adding more memory to system to “try” to improve performance

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi woolf2k,
    Yeap. That’s the killer. It is a laptop.
    Ron

  • Jeff

    There’s an easy solution for all this, and I’ve found it to be a very good solution: Ubuntu Linux.

    Even five years ago, it was difficult for the average person to install and use Linux. The Linux/Unix-based operating systems have always been great for geeks. Now it’s much easier to migrate from Windows to Linux, and Linux uses system resources much better.

    I have XP on two computers and Ubuntu on two others (one of those is used mostly for graphics-intensive photography and desktop publishing, the other for sound production and editing). Other very user-friendly Linux distributions are Open SUSE and Freespire. Check ‘em out! You can download disk images at no charge, and the “live” disks allow you to boot from CD or DVD without affecting your current setup at all.

    I don’t want Windows to die. I just want Microsoft to make a product that does what it says it will do without draining all my resources — financial and otherwise. Microsoft presumes that more and bigger is better (you can sell more stuff if you convince people of that). Open source developers take the opposite view, and I tend to agree with them. As always, your mileage may vary.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Jeff,
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.
    Ron

  • kiko

    definitely agree with Jeff – for those coming from Windows only background Freespire is quite comfortable – haven’t been able to test the 2.0 version ( see above)…but the 1. 0 version ran faster on my old Dell laptop than xp….and EVERYthing worked – live CD had me online and flying compared to xp….saw all the ntfs files on C….just wish it would do the same on this new pc…..:-( .. !

  • http://woolf2k.spaces.live.com/ woolf2k

    a completely different OS isn’t the answer because no windows applications will run in it. DUH!

    it might be an answer for you wanna be special , I got crack called linux… oh aren’t i special types but for the rest of us who have spent loads of money on apps for windows… ubuntu just isn’t the answer…

    and you know what else? before I switch to ubuntu or any form of “freeware” linux … I’ll switch to Apple’s linux. OS X.

    so sick and tired of hearing that linux response…

  • VinnyWU :D

    uhm to shiloh….
    if u did some research u could probably get office for free. if u went too the purchasing company and made a fex special deals x]
    my problem is..when i play a game..ati sux :[

  • http://profiles.google.com/holtcg Chris Holt

    Patch Tuesday is the second Tuesday of the month.
    Staying away from porn and pirate sites is not enough. Users need to stay away from most wallpaper, lyrics and clipart sites as well.

    • Jesse Francis

      And NO email smilies sites. UGH.

      • http://www.facebook.com/Digimichan Digi Chan

        UGH. Just NO. Why do people do these stupid things?! xD

        • Anonymous

          Most IM programs have their built in emotions anyways. These smiley sites are just unnecessary and stupid.

      • Anonymous

        Tell me about it. All of the ones that my family uses were adware, and I had to remove it and then break the bad news to them.

    • http://the-couch-lounge.blogspot.com/ Aaron Couch

      Couldn’t agree more. Typically I see users with 2, 3, 4, FIVE toolbars in their browser and they never even thought twice about how it got there..

      I know this said “software-free”, but I really recommend the Web of Trust (WOT) plugin. Again, you shouldn’t rely on it, but it really is an asset to web surfing, especially to individuals who do it often, such as students’ doing research, etc.

  • Jesse Francis

    Some of this article seems to read like this: “Please do not venture outside of authorized dogma of pure thought and the authorized safety zones. Please keep your mind in the borg at all times. Any deviation may make assimilation unpossible.” lol.

    • http://www.facebook.com/Digimichan Digi Chan

      I won’t blame who does I mean. The internet is some treacherous place. One must have the right judgement and Common sense. and sometimes EVEN when your judgement and common sense is there things could still go wrong. xD Its the misconception of people oversharing things they JUST shouldn’t share or believe.

  • http://hotlinks.blogspot.com/ Raven Lee

    I love how PC people make the comment, “security through anonymity” as if hackers are NOT aware of Mac OS X and that there aren’t 120 MILLION Macs out there. What exactly constitutes Anonymity? Last time I heard, hackers get cred for being the FIRST to infect a security platform. I would assume that launching a massive virus attack against Mac OS X would be the the ULTIMATE COUP.

    • http://twitter.com/Auth8 Authentic8

      it’s already happened. see here

      http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/crying-wolf-apple-support-forums-confirm-malware-explosion/3351

      and these days, it’s not the small time hacker seeking fame that is of concern. it’s the organized rings of real criminals. this latter group have no interest is bragging rights and fame, and they are interested in the biggest target market. 10% of Macs or 90% of PCs? it’s not hard to figure out.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=786216381 Terri Main

    I’m reminded of a woman who was giving a sermon comparing life to a car with faith as the engine, prayer as the fuel, etc. Finally, she was ready for the big finale and said, “Remember, the most important part of any car, is the nut the holds the wheel.”

    Well, the nut at the keyboard also is important. So many times I hear people complain about a Facebook “privacy flaw.” But the “flaw” was that the person themselves posted personal information in a status update. Others have blamed “the internet” for doing stupid things like flying off to the other side of the country to stay with someone they met online and ended up in a bad situation. It was bad judgement not bad internet.

    • http://www.facebook.com/Digimichan Digi Chan

      I can’t agree more with you. People just tend to go and blame it on the internet OR website. Its just a case of bad judgment and lack of common sense.

  • http://www.facebook.com/DEETAYLOR123456789 Dee Taylor

    Always use anti virus software on all Operating Systems.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Digimichan Digi Chan

    Nice article. Like I always like to say “Common sense: So rare its a goddamn super power” LOL.

  • Anonymous

    That’s useful!!!