Inspiron 1501 - getting 446mb ram instead of 512 mb

Hi there. I received my Inspiron Laptop 2 days ago. Inspiron 1501 - 512 Ram- AMD mk-36 - ATI RadeonXpress 1150 256mb (integrated) - running WindowsXP prof sp2. When I turn on, it shows 446 mb on bios and same thing in WinXP when I run System configuration, only 446 mb is installed instead of 512. Is there a problem with my Ram? Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

No problem with you ram. Your Ati video card is integrated and as such you are using system memory to supplement and/or fully provide the "hypermemory". That is why the integrated cards aren't as good as dedicated. My Ati card is both 128mb dedicated and then shared up to 256. The problem is that Hypermemory is a slower access time than onboard video memory. Now it may not us all of the 128 but if you download the Ati catalyst control center you can change this at the bottom, its listed as the uma frame buffer. But changing it will not make your video card perform any better. Chaz has a more detailed explanation about integrated video memory here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=39568 . This guy is definitely an expert on graphics cards. Hope this helps.

 

thanks. : )