Windows 7 - Installed Memory: 1.50GB (768 Usable)?

Hey guys, so today I received my My 1GB Kingston memory module;
which I thoroughly checked that it was compatible for my laptop before purchase,
My Laptop has two memory module slots.

The previous RAM setup I had was 512MB + 256MB = 768 (759 Usable)
After implementation of the 1GB RAM = 512MB + 1GB = 1.50GB (768 Usable)

These were/are from on my system properties info.

IS the 1GB memory Module defected?
OR is should I have nothing to worry about?


Additional info:
Toshiba Satellite Pro U200 (Notebook)
OP: Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit
Processor: Genuine Intel(R) CPU T1300 @ 1.66GHz
Graphics Card: Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family

Plus the Motherboard can handle upto 4GB of memory installed; (2GB for each slot).

------------------------
You guys reckon swaping the memory modules around would help?
Since the 512MB module was the main one from the start...

What is your graphics - card or onboard and what model.

Welcome Brian

Can you give us a screen snip of your memory with CPU-Z ?

Please could some one shed some light on the whole scenario??

Thanks for posting the snip. Looks like you have mis-matched Brands & speeds of ram memory. You will do best with a matched pair, Same Brand, speed, & size of ram

Open resource monitor and go to the memory tab. That will show you what is hardware reserved, in use, free, etc.

Note that your new 1GB memory (PC2-5300, 333Mhz) is faster (PC2-4300, 266Mhz) than your old 512MB memory.

Looks from your screenshot like the CPU has dropped down to the slower of the two speeds, namely 266Mhz. So you're not really getting the speed benefit from the newer memory, if you thought you were going to.

Please post a screenshot from Taskmgr -> Performance tab, push Resource Monitor button, -> Memory tab. Something like this:




Hard to believe you could replace a 512MB piece of memory with a 1GB piece of memory and essentially get zero addition to your "available", unless all the rest of it got gobbled up by your video graphics chip (as would be visible and apparent in a large "hardware reserved" item of the screenshot).

It's never a good idea to have mismatched memory sticks, either on manufacturer, size, speed, etc.

Thought about just going with a matched 2x2GB kit?

Looking up the Toshiba Satellite U200 series on the Crucial site, here's a PC2-5300 2x2GB kit for $66 from Crucial that I believe is right for your U200 laptop.

Or, for $18 you can get another 1GB PC2-5300 card to replace your old slower 512MB card. But this would not be a "matched set".

Matched PC2-5300 2x1GB kit for $36.

Always right to have a matched pair, especially with memory prices being as low as they are.

A memory scanner will give you advice on what you can upgrade to: SDRAM, DDR2 and DDR RAM memory upgrades from Crucial.com

Huh?

Oh... now I see. You edited your original post to add the screenshot I requested.

Incidentally, I looked further into your U200 laptop. The graphics chip in it is actually Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950. According to Intel:

Dynamic Video Memory Technology (DVMT) 3.0 supports up to 224MB of video memory; system memory is allocated where it is needed dynamically.

That screenshot from Task Manager -> Performance tab, Resource Monitor button -> Memory tab shows that Windows definitely recognizes all the 1.5GB of physical memory you have installed. It shows "1536 MB installed", which is what we would have expected. So all of it is actually in use.

Yes, the two memory cards are of different size and different speeds, but apparently both the BIOS and Windows were willing to accept those differences and still make all 1.5GB available.

I'm still certain that the BIOS has chosen to run the CPU/memory at the slower speed of your two cards, so you're not getting any performance boost on that side, if you thought you were going to. But as I mentioned in my earlier reply, it's never recommended to have (a) different size memory, (b) different speed memory, and (c) different manufacturer's memory.

For the low prices of a matched set of two memory cards for your Toshiba U200 laptop from Crucial that I noted above (i.e. $66 for 2x2GB kit, or $36 for 2x1GB kit, or $18 for a single 1GB card... all at PC2-5300, like your current faster new 1GB card) it seems that this would be a good idea for another upgrade, if you wanted to go that route.


Anyway, back to your new memory allocation screenshot.

It shows a full 769MB of the 1536MB installed going to "hardware reserved", and thus completely unavailable to Windows 7. That leaves 767MB of the 1536MB actually available, which is what you stated in your original post even without the screenshot.

So... obviously the new physical memory has been allocated for use by your Intel Media Accelerator 950 graphics chip, in my opinion (i.e. "hardware reserved).

Before the additional 768MB physical memory was present, it would appear that the graphics chip realized it could not grab all of the physical memory it really wanted, and thus reverted to operation with whatever minimal memory it may have actually come with. The spec says "up to 224MB of video memory" but the Toshiba documentation is not specific as to what really may have been installed.

Anyway, my guess is that since you say you previously had 759MB usable out of the 768MB of memory previously installed, obviously there could only have been about 9MB previously allocated to "hardware reserved". And now that you've added another 768MB of memory, almost all of it has seemingly been grabbed by your Intel Media Accelerator 950 graphics chip for its own use!

My guess is that video performance before you upgraded the memory, where the graphics chip had whatever little video memory it had to work with, plus no more than 9MB of RAM carved out, may have been fairly poor. Now that it's grabbed 768MB of memory (which is probably the maximum it's going to grab, no matter how much physical memory you now add additionally) my guess is that its performance is much much much better.

That's my guess. Your current situation is simply what your U200 hardware wants to do.


My real suggestion is that if you want to improve your current situation, spend $66 and buy the 2x2GB PC2-5300 memory kit from Crucial, and put 4GB of the somewhat faster memory into your laptop. Even if you take out the 768MB of "hardware reserved" (which in my opinion will still be the case, and nothing more will be removed) that will leave you with 3.3GB of memory available to Windows 7.

And since you're running the 32-bit version of Windows 7 anyway, that is pretty much the maximum amount of memory the OS can physically make use of.

So a 4GB machine will give you (a) optimal video performance for your Intel 950 graphics chip, using 768MB of memory, and (b) optimal 32-bit Windows 7 performance, with 3.3GB available.

That's my recommendation. There's nothing else you can do when your graphics chip is taking 768MB for itself.

WoW such a great community that is commited to help newbies like meh
If only I was rich enough to give each and everyone of you of you a medal
"A GOLD One coz all of you deserve one"

It's nice to know there's still decent people in this world, willing to invest time & effort
into helping others.

A Big Thank You all the way down here from England.