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Win7(64bit) shows 3gb RAM usable but Vista (32bit) shows full 4gb Ram
I own an old Packard Bell Easynote MX37 laptop which was running Windows Vista Basic (32bit !!). I only use it now and then and decided to get a few more years life out of it and do some upgrades. It has an Intel T2390 Pentium 1.86ghz CPU (it’s a dual core).
It used to have 3gb RAM (1x 1gb and 1x 2gb). I replaced the 1gb stick with a 2gb stick identical to the other 2gb stick. In my American Megatrends BIOS it shows 4gb RAM and in Windows Vista Basic (32 bit) it shows 4gb RAM as well (I know, unexpected).
I did a compatibility test for Windows 7 64 bit and it turned out positive so I then swapped the old hard drive for a Western Digital SSD drive and did a clean Windows 7 Pro 64 bit installation. Windows 7 still shows 4gb RAM.
The basic VGA driver showed horizontal lines on my laptop screen so I installed the latest available driver for my onboard SIS Mirage 3 graphics (I know this is a crappy card but I’m stuck with it). After reboot the lines dissapeared and I experience an overall increase on the video performance. However after the installation of this driver Windows now shows 4gb RAM (3GB usable). To verify it was caused by the graphics driver I uninstalled the driver and was then back to 4gb RAM but horrible graphics performance again.
What I tried; the AMI BIOS is the latest available version so there is no upgrade available for this system. Also it is a very limited BIOS, there are no onboard graphics settings or any memory remapping functions. Just basic boot order, date and time settings. But I figured this cannot be the problem as it shows full available memory and Windows Vista as well.
I opened MSCONFIG -> boot -> advanced options -> and see ‘maximum memory’ is ticked and set to 0. According to various internet sources this box needs to be unticked. So when I untick it I need to do a reboot but after the first Windows logo my screen goes black. I then have to do a hard reset and boot into safe mode to undo this setting.
Noteworthy might be that in safe mode there is 4gb RAM available (probably because the graphics drivers are disabled in safe mode?).
I’ve tried several other older versions of the driver as well as the version I had installed in Windows Vista but they won’t solve the RAM issue.
I’ve tried Porteus (bootable linux) and this showed 4GB of RAM as well.
I guess my question is: how can my 4gb of RAM show up in Windows Vista Basic (32bit) but in Windows 7 Pro (64bit) I can only have 3gb RAM usable? And is there any solution to this or am I just stuck with this situation?
(I’ve seen lots of other forum post stating similar issues but none really seem to describe my situation).