My computer is not using all installed memory...

[juanantoniod]

Hello everyone,

I just installed my new 4GB memory cards (2x2GB) in my notebook computer, and it is not showing all of it as useable. It says:

Installed Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB (2.99 GB usable)

Attached is a screen capture of my system properties which shows this. Why is it not able to use all of the 4.00 GB that I have installed?

Thanks for any help! Happy Holidays!

 

[zigzag3143]

Hello everyone,

I just installed my new 4GB memory cards (2x2GB) in my notebook computer, and it is not showing all of it as useable. It says:

Installed Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB (2.99 GB usable)

Attached is a screen capture of my system properties which shows this. Why is it not able to use all of the 4.00 GB that I have installed?

Thanks for any help! Happy Holidays!

You are running 32 bit OS. It can usually only use about 3.25 gigs the rest of the missing is probably your video card.

 

[Sardonicus]

That's normal with a 32 bit OS.

 

[Tews]

A 32bit OS can't address a full 4gb of memory .... typically it will only be able to use @3.5gb of memory... In your case the remainder of the missing ram is probably being used by your graphics chip... You need to install the 64bit version of Windows to utilize the full 4gb of RAM...


EDIT: Ken beat me again!

 

[logicearth]

You need to install the 64bit version of Windows to utilize the full 4gb of RAM...

And have a motherboard/chipset capable of addressing larger address spaces.
And if the BIOS doesn't have a method of remapping...

 

[juanantoniod]

Thank you everyone! I guess that was $100 down the toilet. I do notice a little performance increase, but I really think I am going over to the other side (Mac).

Sometimes my machine will shut down 'abnormally' because the battery loses power, and so I must boot into safe mode, shut down, then boot normally. Howeve, when I boot into safe mode, I can see all the DOS paths flying by and some have System with a lower case "s" and some with upper case "S". Wouldn't you think by now that *someone* would have thought to proofread thee and make them consistent???

And what is up with this auotmatic updating??? I have it set to download updates, then prompt me to install. Instead, it never prompts me, and then when I am in a hurry and shutting down my machine to reboot or something, it will install all the updates, usually about 10, taking about 20 minutes. I never gave it permission to do that!

And speaking of shutting down, even when there are *no* updates to install, it takes FOREVER. What happened to the days of just turning off the machine??? I swear a nuclear bomb could be falling and I would sill be waiting for windows to finish shutting down!

One last rant. If my iPhone can handle 32 GB of memory, why can my Notebook/Laptop computer not handle only 4 GB, and because it is not running Windows 64 bit??? Shouldn't Microsoft have told me this when I purchased Windows 7???

At this point, I"m so sick of Microsoft. The only thing I want to have to do with them is their Kinect that hooks up to the 360 XBOX. That looks cool, but it is probably a big abomination like all Microsoft products.

Thoughts?

 

[logicearth]

One last rant. If my iPhone can handle 32 GB of memory, why can my Notebook/Laptop computer not handle only 4 GB, and because it is not running Windows 64 bit??? Shouldn't Microsoft have told me this when I purchased Windows 7???

Ummm your iPhone's 32 GBs is not RAM. That 32 GBs is like a Hard Drive for a computer. The 4 GB RAM limit is a 32 bit limitation, not a Windows limitation. This has been known for years. Your lack of research in the matter is of your own fault.

By the way. you already have access to the 64bit version of Windows. You do not need to buy another copy. A license for the 32bit version is also for the 64bit version.

 

[cluberti]

Thank you everyone! I guess that was $100 down the toilet. I do notice a little performance increase, but I really think I am going over to the other side (Mac).

You should use whatever you want to use, but any 32bit OS is going to have this issue - switching to a 32bit Mac or Linux isn't going to allow the OS to use memory the BIOS has reserved either, unfortunately.

Sometimes my machine will shut down 'abnormally' because the battery loses power, and so I must boot into safe mode, shut down, then boot normally

Another BIOS issue you should look into before continuing use with Windows 7 (or switching to a Mac OS or a Linux variant - it means the BIOS is misreporting the battery state to the OS when it makes the more invasive checks that Win7 does, as will most newer Linux variants or a Mac OS X install).

However, when I boot into safe mode, I can see all the DOS paths flying by and some have System with a lower case "s" and some with upper case "S". Wouldn't you think by now that *someone* would have thought to proofread thee and make them consistent???

They're that way for a reason, and while the OCD in you might be satisfied if they were all the same, it's not feasible or recommended that this be done .

And what is up with this auotmatic updating??? I have it set to download updates, then prompt me to install. Instead, it never prompts me, and then when I am in a hurry and shutting down my machine to reboot or something, it will install all the updates, usually about 10, taking about 20 minutes. I never gave it permission to do that!

Be careful when shutting down - the default is to "shut down and install updates" - you have to make an additional click into the shutdown menu to skip that (if you use the power button or just click shut down in the menu, this is the default).

And speaking of shutting down, even when there are *no* updates to install, it takes FOREVER. What happened to the days of just turning off the machine??? I swear a nuclear bomb could be falling and I would sill be waiting for windows to finish shutting down!

Sounds like a service or application is "checkpointing" winlogon's shutdown process (aka, winlogon or services.exe asks the app or service if it's ready to shut down, and it keeps responding "in a bit..." over and over). This is configurable in the registry, but there are also tools (xperf) to troubleshoot this and catch the offender.

One last rant. If my iPhone can handle 32 GB of memory, why can my Notebook/Laptop computer not handle only 4 GB, and because it is not running Windows 64 bit??? Shouldn't Microsoft have told me this when I purchased Windows 7???

As a previous poster said, this isn't RAM, it's a disk - also, Windows 7 (x64) could handle 32GB with aplomb - if you bought a retail copy of Windows 7, you already have both the 32 and 64bit discs, and you should at this point be installing the 64bit Windows 7 from the 64bit DVD. Using a 32bit OS with huge BIOS reservations isn't a good idea nowadays.

At this point, I"m so sick of Microsoft. The only thing I want to have to do with them is their Kinect that hooks up to the 360 XBOX. That looks cool, but it is probably a big abomination like all Microsoft products.

That is your perogative, but nothing you've mentioned here (other than the shutdown preference to install before powering off) is a Microsoft problem. More research by you in this case would have saved you a lot of time and frustration, so I think your pain is mostly self-inflicted. If you'd like to troubleshoot the shutdown slowness, that can be done on another thread, but I'd suggest installing the 64bit Win7 install from the 64bit disc before going any further with your troubleshooting. Pretty much every other setting can be tweaked or troubleshot away.

 

[juanantoniod]

Thanks, but...

One last rant. If my iPhone can handle 32 GB of memory, why can my Notebook/Laptop computer not handle only 4 GB, and because it is not running Windows 64 bit??? Shouldn't Microsoft have told me this when I purchased Windows 7???

Ummm your iPhone's 32 GBs is not RAM. That 32 GBs is like a Hard Drive for a computer. The 4 GB RAM limit is a 32 bit limitation, not a Windows limitation. This has been known for years. Your lack of research in the matter is of your own fault.

By the way. you already have access to the 64bit version of Windows. You do not need to buy another copy. A license for the 32bit version is also for the 64bit version.

Well, thanks for the information on using the 64bit of Windows. I guess my question would be, if 32 bit is so bad, and there is a viable option, why is this option not the de facto standard? And, FWIW, I did do *my* research before hand. I called Toshiba, and asked them what was the maximum RAM my computer could address? They told me 4GB...

 

[juanantoniod]

>>>Cluberti,

Thanks for all the detail in your answers! I appreciate that very much. I am not re quoting directly because I do not have the personal ability to do that. I would still like to know why all the "S's" in the System folder are not consistently all upper or all lower case. That makes no sense to me. Other than that, your points are very clear and well taken. Is it true that Mac users don't have to deal with all of these issues, or is it just a case of the grass being greener on the other side? (I am referring to things like configuring the shut down to not install updates, and figuring out which application is holding up the shut down process. Mac purports to not have these issues, and, from my iPhone usage, it would seem that they are correct.)

Take good care,

 

[juanantoniod]

Oh and the iPhone's 32GB is RAM, not 'hard disk'. I mean, how would they fit a disk into that little phone?

 

[logicearth]

Oh and the iPhone's 32GB is RAM, not 'hard disk'. I mean, how would they fit a disk into that little phone?

... You are being serious are you not?

 

[cluberti]

No worries mate. The reason 32bit Windows is still around is mostly down to drivers and old applications - there are even today still folks that have apps and drivers that just don't work in a 64bit environment. It is worth noting, however, that OEMs like Lenovo and Dell have been shipping Windows 7 x64 as the default for quite some time now (and Toshiba has been on my sh*t list as far as hardware and software goes for a long time, so I have no idea what they've done since the Vista days). As to Mac, the reason they tend to have fewer problems like this is down to the app and developer ecosystem - it's a much more closed garden, so to speak, and they have far more control (meaning 100%, basically) over the drivers and hardware that works with their OS. Also, once they made the switch from PPC to x86/Intel, they pretty much got rid of backwards compatibility with older PPC apps (these had to run in an emulation layer, or be rewritten for x86 Mac OS X ultimately). The grass is greener, for sure, but you lose a lot of control over your PC environs. The choice is, of course, ultimately yours - again, you should use what works best for you. If you have apps that you can take with you and either repurchase, completely replace, or re-download for Mac OS X, then you should seriously consider it. Otherwise, sticking with Windows means doing your research and making wise decisions (just as you would with any other aspect of your life). On one hand, your research in talking to Toshiba was good, but asking them how much RAM your system could address (4GB, which is technically correct) versus how much the OS could actually *use* once the hardware and BIOS reserves memory is something else that Toshiba was bound to give you a technically correct, but completely unusable answer on (again, don't get me started on Toshiba). If you need help doing real research, let us know here .

 

[marsmimar]

To speed up shutdown times, try this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/717-shut-down-speed-up.html

For information about why you might be getting updates installed even though you want to be notified beforehand, see this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/windows-updates-activation/121062-stop-automatic-updates.html#post1042245

 

[Mashed1316]

Hi Juan! look, i have a MacBook Pro 15" late 2010! and it's not the best thing that's ever happened to me.. sometimes people get all *happy* because they've got a Mac, and Mac to be honest, ok, it's easy, it's cool, it's good hardware, but i've had a lot of software issues with OSX Snow Leopard, random locks, random reboots, people say Mac is "Virus Free" and that's not entirely true..

I spend way more time in my System Specs PC than in my MacBook Pro (Core i5 2.4GB, 4GB DDR3 Ram) :huh: and i'm not a M$ fanboy, neither an Apple fanboy.. few weeks ago, i took my MacBook to an Expo i had to do in the University, and in the middle of the expo, the Presentation i had on iWork hung up, causing me a really big problem, but that is not what we came to argue.

Thing is, 64-bit OS for your toshiba and that's it... easy as that.. you will see approx. 3.5GB as the other 0.5GB is reserved to your Video Card that's integrated..

End of the story.. Be happy..

EDIT: iPhone 4G has 512MB Ram and 32GB Flash Drive (Storage), iPhone 3GS has 256MB Ram! iPhone 3G has 128MB Ram!

 

[Solarstarshines]

Looks like someone needs to take windows all versions 101

Not trying to be funny man but you need to really read about what you are useing and if some salesperson told you this informantion then we can't really blame you for being misinformed

Like i was saying you should go purchase windows for dummies even though i never used it ,It's a direct and plain english type of deal with out all the jargen smargen that you won't understand then you will have a idea of what my fellow members are explaining to you

 

[juanantoniod]

Half serious...

Oh and the iPhone's 32GB is RAM, not 'hard disk'. I mean, how would they fit a disk into that little phone?

... You are being serious are you not?

I was being half serious or mostly serious, kind of tongue in cheek. Because it is true: How would one fit a hard disk in that small of a space (the iPhone)? AND, the memory in iPhone is RAM (Random Access Memory) or working memory, not a hard drive. Perhaps a hybrid term might be more accurrate: solid state memory?

 

[juanantoniod]

It seems like it is just different problems...

No worries mate. The reason 32bit Windows is still around is mostly down to drivers and old applications - there are even today still folks that have apps and drivers that just don't work in a 64bit environment. It is worth noting, however, that OEMs like Lenovo and Dell have been shipping Windows 7 x64 as the default for quite some time now (and Toshiba has been on my sh*t list as far as hardware and software goes for a long time, so I have no idea what they've done since the Vista days). As to Mac, the reason they tend to have fewer problems like this is down to the app and developer ecosystem - it's a much more closed garden, so to speak, and they have far more control (meaning 100%, basically) over the drivers and hardware that works with their OS. Also, once they made the switch from PPC to x86/Intel, they pretty much got rid of backwards compatibility with older PPC apps (these had to run in an emulation layer, or be rewritten for x86 Mac OS X ultimately). The grass is greener, for sure, but you lose a lot of control over your PC environs. The choice is, of course, ultimately yours - again, you should use what works best for you. If you have apps that you can take with you and either repurchase, completely replace, or re-download for Mac OS X, then you should seriously consider it. Otherwise, sticking with Windows means doing your research and making wise decisions (just as you would with any other aspect of your life). On one hand, your research in talking to Toshiba was good, but asking them how much RAM your system could address (4GB, which is technically correct) versus how much the OS could actually *use* once the hardware and BIOS reserves memory is something else that Toshiba was bound to give you a technically correct, but completely unusable answer on (again, don't get me started on Toshiba). If you need help doing real research, let us know here .

Cluberti,

Thanks for the very explanative response. It used to be that people stuck with Microsoft Windows OS instead of Mac because of software incompatibility or unavailability issues on the Mac. But now that everything is going toward a more cloud based 'os', the line between Macs and Microsoft Windows PCs is getting thinner and thinner. Everything Adobe will run on Mac, Office is available for Mac, although I wonder why anyone would want to put something from Microsoft on such a beautiful machine. iTunes, the other major player in the software applications, is of course Mac-able. So, yeah, I cannot see why anyone would want to use a Microsoft Windows based PC.

I am curious, however, why Toshiba is on your s**t list. I have had nothing but good with my last 2 Satellites and 1 Portege, the original Tablet PC -- boy did that bomb! He he he.

I just love the idea of a PC that works the way iPhone works. When I first got the iPhone, every time I went to do something it was just like they thought of it first. Nothing needed to be reconfigured, downloaded or fixed to get it to work. Now that I have had the phone for a while, I can notice a few downfalls: 1-is that when you turn the phone horizontal on the home screens, the icons do not turn with it, 2-is the built in correction dictionary for typing sux; I wish they would have used the same keyboarding system that the PS3 uses, and last, 3-well i guess there really is nothing else to fix, except that i wish the entire phone was controllable by voice, but that is a whole other topic.

Thanks again for the follow through on this thread!

P.S. Until I can get a Mac, should I go back and reinstall Windows and Office in the 64 Bit versions, and start using that for increased performance? Or am I going to have compatibility issues with 64 bit Windows, because my mom's desktop PC has Microsoft Windows 64 bit, and when I was visiting her a few months ago, one of the Adobe apps, like flash or something, was not working on the 64 bit environment because it had not been built yet. Is this a common occurrence where 64 bit apps come second to 32 bit?

Happy Holidays!

 

[juanantoniod]

Thanks, Marsmimar!

To speed up shutdown times, try this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/717-shut-down-speed-up.html

For information about why you might be getting updates installed even though you want to be notified beforehand, see this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/windows-updates-activation/121062-stop-automatic-updates.html#post1042245

I appreciate you looking these up for me, but shouldn't the computer figure out the fastest way and just shut down when you tell it? (One of the whole reasons I despised Mac from the get-go was because you just couldn't open the drive door and take out your floppy, like you could on the DOS PCs of that day, and that you had to tell the Mac to shut down, you couldn't just turn it off like a PC. Now, with MS Windows, we basically have the same issues, so there is no reason to despise Mac any more than MS Windows)

Also, what gave Microsoft the 'right' to just install its updates even when you tell it not to? Is this not evil? Perhaps I'm too forward in my thinking, but after working with computers for 32 years, I would have thought that these 'kinks' would have already been worked out.

 

[juanantoniod]

I understand...

Looks like someone needs to take windows all versions 101

Not trying to be funny man but you need to really read about what you are useing and if some salesperson told you this informantion then we can't really blame you for being misinformed

Like i was saying you should go purchase windows for dummies even though i never used it ,It's a direct and plain english type of deal with out all the jargen smargen that you won't understand then you will have a idea of what my fellow members are explaining to you

I have no problems understanding how Windows works (or fails to). Nor do I not know what fellow members are talking about. I fully get it. I just think that, by now (I have been working with computers for 32 years.), these things should function a bit better. It is kind of like a car. Now they make cars that need *no* maintenance for the first 100,000 miles. Shouldn't computers have advanced at leas that much?