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    Acer Aspire 5680 memory: 4.00 GB installed (3.00 usable)

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Mudblood, Sep 27, 2009.

  1. Mudblood

    Mudblood Newbie

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    I just installed Windows 7 x64 from scratch. It gives the message: 4.00 GB installed (3.00 usable)

    Resource Monitor shows 1026MB of memory being "hardware reserved".

    I updated to the latest bios for HBL50, v3.60 which supposedly adds support for 4G of memory.

    Processor is a T5500, but the chipset is i945PM, so it supports 4GB of ram. Is there a way to remap the ram so that the whole 4GB can be used? BIOs has no options for it, and there is no option to allocate memory from GPU to CPU if that is happening.
     
    Mudblood, Sep 27, 2009
    #1
  2. kroeze8_29

    kroeze8_29 Newbie

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    Its probably a limitation on the motherboard, not all are created equal
     
    kroeze8_29, Sep 27, 2009
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  3. goofball

    goofball Notebook Deity

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    945PM is the hardware limitation. No way to remap with the Acer.
     
    goofball, Sep 27, 2009
    #3
  4. DEagleson

    DEagleson Gamer extraordinaire

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    Got the same motherboard, Intel i945PM and i can only use 3,37 GB of RAM.
     
    DEagleson, Sep 29, 2009
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  5. Vinyard

    Vinyard Notebook Evangelist

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    Quite a difference between 3.37 and 3 Gb RAM.
     
    Vinyard, Sep 29, 2009
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  6. Judicator

    Judicator Judged and found wanting.

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    The difference may be in the graphics card. Since this model has a dedicated graphics card, the memory for the card has to be allocated by the chipset memory controller as well, I believe, which will eat into the 32 bit memory controller limit.
     
    Judicator, Sep 30, 2009
    #6
  7. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    There is more to it than the graphics card, but yes the more devices the less RAM will be available.
     
    Greg, Sep 30, 2009
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  8. goofball

    goofball Notebook Deity

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    with my old 5570, a bios update lowered the ram usable from 3.3gb to 3gb. Had issues installing xp/vista (32 and 64bit) with 3.3 usable but none with 3gb
     
    goofball, Sep 30, 2009
    #8