4gigs of ram only showing as 3.4ish?????

I called the dell rep and he said the video card is taking the rest of the ram... WTF?? I have the 8600 with 256 mb ram..... oh... its a 1720 with a t7250 160g hd and 4g ram... running vista premium .. is the dell guy correct???? how can I make it see that I have 4 gig of ram... (I went in bios and it DOES show I have 4gb of ram)

 

This has been covered many times.

Click here - http://forum.notebookreview.com/search.php

 

You have a 32bit Vista installation, so you will never see all 4GB of RAM.

Basically, you have 4GB of addresses (32bit OS...2^32 = 4GB)...but your video card needs some address space, as does every other hardware component on your laptop. It takes that space from the 4GB worth of possible addresses, leaving less for RAM.

 

Your system manual and BIOS should clearly state that not all of system RAM will be seen because part of it is being reserved by your system for use. This is common knowledge so one reason for going 64-bit Vista is to free up the 0.5Gb for something else such as games (among other reasons)

 

so does that mean i spend 400$ for a upgrade that i cant use lol.....???(from2g to 4g)

 

mmmm, did you buy ram from dell???? You could have gotten the 4GB's from Newegg for about $120 and gotten Windows Ultimate from Dell instead of premium version which is 64 bit for $125. That's what the salesperson told me anyway

 

All the Vista editions exist in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Dell gives you the 32-bit version with the computer no matter which edition you choose (Premium, Ultimate, or any other edition).

I still recommend buying RAM from newegg though.

 

Lesson learned: do your research before you buy a computer.

 

I would try to return the RAM to Dell and ask them for 2 GB, instead, and to credit you the difference, as $400 is WAY too high to go from 2 to 4 when you can buy 4 GB of Crucial RAM outright (and keep your 2 as spare) for $120.

You should be able to see 3.5 GB on a (Santa Rosa) 965 chipset, though it does depend on your graphics card. The other .5 GB is not "taken up" by your graphics card (though the graphics card does use some system memory, as you'll see if you check its properties in Device Manager); rather, as others said, the graphics card and others are using 512MB or more of the 4 GB that the OS can address, so it can only address 3.5 GB of actual RAM.

 

It's clear ALL over the website that with 4gb of RAM you wont' be able to use all of it with 32bit Vista. Caveat Emptor. or not technically the right use of the phrase but you get the point.

 

So does that mean that If I bought Vista Business and it comes with both 32bit and 64 bit? Only that the 32bit is being installed for you?

 

No the 32 and 64 bit versions are on seperate DVD's. Technically though the 32bit DVD has all the 32 bit versions and the 64 DVD has all the 64 bit versions. When you enter the code during install it uses that to determine which version to install.

 

Meaning if i bought the notebook with a 32bit OS pre-installed. The cd will only have a 32bit OS installation files in it. And mine only comes with one cd. I guess that means it only comes with a 32bit OS. Owh well, unless there is a way to upgrade it to 64bit..(Is there? I hope there is! XD) I guess I'll have to stick to 32bit then.

 

The only compelling reason to use 64-bit Vista is if you have apps that require it.

 

I'd rather use 64-bit vista because I have 4gb ram installed. And windows anytime upgrade is not available in my region.

 

As I said, the only compelling reason to use a 64-bit version of Vista is if you have software that requires it. If not, don't bother jumping through those hoops simply to see all 4gb of memory. You won't see any noticeable speed/performance increases unless you're using specific 64-bit software that is memory intensive.

 

Alright.. Thanks for the info! I think the most intensive software I'm using for now is Adobe Photoshop CS3, Adobe Illustrater and Adobe After Effects. Its not lagging now.. I also read that although its not shown as 4gb but it fully utilised. I hope it is! so that my 4gb wont go to waste. THanks again Khris!

 

Since 32-bit Vista can only see 3.5gb of memory, that's all that is actually being utilized from within Windows (even though the BIOS sees all 4gb).

Having said that however, going from 3.5 to 4gb isn't going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.