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    MBP: Why only 3.72GB of RAM usable in Windows 7 x64?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by cool8man, Jun 24, 2009.

  1. cool8man

    cool8man Newbie

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    Just installed Windows 7 x64 on a new Macbook Pro with 4GB of RAM. When I go to check the specs it says "Installed memory: 4.00GB (3.72GB usable)"

    [​IMG]

    Do I need to update a driver or bios?? My first thought was that it was sharing video memory, but my previous gen unibody Macbook has 2GB of RAM and all of it is usable in Windows 32-bit, none of it is shared. Both Macbooks have the same GPU so why isn't the total amount of RAM usable in x64 version of Windows? :confused:
     
    cool8man, Jun 24, 2009
    #1
  2. ichiban06

    ichiban06 Notebook Guru

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    the missing ram is assigned to your nvidia graphics memory.
     
    ichiban06, Jun 24, 2009
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  3. cool8man

    cool8man Newbie

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    Okay, that's what I was hoping.

    Any idea why all 2GB of RAM was listed as usable in 32-bit Windows and not just 1.72GB?

    Previous macbook was the 13" aluminum 2.0GHz 2GB RAM Nvidia 9400m bootcamping Vista 32-bit.

    Maybe Windows 7 is just more precise with the specs.
     
    cool8man, Jun 24, 2009
    #3
  4. S.SubZero

    S.SubZero Notebook Deity

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    Way back in Vista SP1 they changed the System screen that shows the RAM to list all the RAM in the system, not the RAM that is usable.
     
    S.SubZero, Jun 24, 2009
    #4