Windows 7 Memory Concern

[B3astiie]

Hi everyone,

When I go to system propertise in Windows 7, I see 4.00 GB (3.87 GB usable). But when I go to task manager I see, Total 3966.

1st Question: Why is there a difference in size? Is this something to be conern about? If so, How do I fix it.

Second Problem: In system config under advance boot options, I set my cpu to 2 and i check the box for maximum memory and it shows up as 4096. However upon restart as requested, when I come back, the box is set to 0 again. Unless, I set it for to the total that is in task manager 3966. Then after restart, 3966 remains.

2nd Question: Why is this? And how can I fix it?

 

[whs]

1. Have a look into Resource Monitor > Memory tab. It will tell you what the few MBs that are not useable are actually used for - it is the first gray area on the left of the color bar.
2. There is nothing to be gained playing around with the boot option in msconfig. The CPU setting is for hardware testing only and buys you absolutely nothing. Same for the other settings - you cannot fool the system. RAM cannot be used twice (e.g. by the BIOS and by the OS).

 

[Everlong]

Don't change anything in the advanced boot options, as these are for debugging purposes and not for improving system performance or anything. Did this RAM issue happen before you enabled the CPU and memory options in the boot options?

 

[B3astiie]

1. Have a look into Resource Monitor > Memory tab. It will tell you what the few MBs that are not useable are actually used for - it is the first gray area on the left of the color bar.
2. There is nothing to be gained playing around with the boot option in msconfig. The CPU setting is for hardware testing only and buys you absolutely nothing. Same for the other settings - you cannot fool the system. RAM cannot be used twice (e.g. by the BIOS and by the OS).

My Reply: Hardware Reserve 130, In Use 885, Modified 154, Standy 1339, Free 1584. The grey area would be the Hardware Reserve.

Don't change anything in the advanced boot options, as these are for debugging purposes and not for improving system performance or anything. Did this RAM issue happen before you enabled the CPU and memory options in the boot options?

My Reply: Yes before I was seeing the same thing with install being 4.00 (3.87 usable) and in task manager it saying Total 3966. The oddness of this started after taking out two previous ram sticks (one being 1 gig and the other being 2 gig of different brand) and adding 2 of the same brands at 2 gigs giving me a total of 4 gigs for my 64 bit system.

 

[Wishmaster]

Are you using a AMD chipset?

Chances are, the memory you are missing from installed RAM is being used as dedicated video memory for onboard graphics.

Looks like 128MB. This option can be increased or disabled in the bios, but I would strongly discourage disabling it.

So you aren't actually missing anything. Just a portion is dedicated to graphics and the rest the system can use.

<<Upon further investigation:
Chipset Type AMD M690T
Graphics Processor / Vendor ATI RADEON Xpress1270 HyperMemory
Max Allocated RAM Size 256.0 MB
Im fairly ceratin this is where the missing memory you see has gone>>

 

[B3astiie]

Okay thank you! I wanted to make sure no weird error happen after upgrading to 4 gigs. I was reading about refreashing a catch in the bios, don't know how to do that and wasn't sure if that was the reason.

 

[whs]

You should also know that windows adjusts it's footprint according to the available RAM. So the footprint in 4GBs is larger than in 2GBs.

 

[CommonTater]

Hi everyone,

When I go to system propertise in Windows 7, I see 4.00 GB (3.87 GB usable). But when I go to task manager I see, Total 3966.

1st Question: Why is there a difference in size?

3.87GB is roughly 3966Mb... Remember this is all based on powers of 2 where 1K == 1024, not 1000.