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    Amount of usable ram.

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by oxyg3n520, Jan 16, 2012.

  1. oxyg3n520

    oxyg3n520 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi. I have a Lenovo Ideapad Y530 and yesterday, before I went to windows 7 from vista, when I go to system properties it shows 3gb of ram. However, now that I have installed Windows 7 onto my computer, it shows me 3gb (2.47gb usable) why is that? And does that mean if I get 4gb it will still only have 2.47 usable?

    p.s. i have a 32bit system right now
     
    oxyg3n520, Jan 16, 2012
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  2. SlickDude80

    SlickDude80 Notebook Prophet

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    32 bit windows can only address up to 3 gigs or ram...then you have to give some up to the system so it shows 2.5gigs

    you'll need to upgrade to 64bit windows if you want to have more useable ram. Sticking in a 4 gigs of ram now will still show 2.5gigs useable
     
    SlickDude80, Jan 16, 2012
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  3. oxyg3n520

    oxyg3n520 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Oh ic. but the thing is it never showed "only 2.47gb usable" when I had windows vista 32bit.
     
    oxyg3n520, Jan 16, 2012
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  4. SlickDude80

    SlickDude80 Notebook Prophet

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    i guarantee you that Vista needed some resources to operate also. In vista, 3 gigs of ram installed would not mean 3 gigs useable either. It could just be the way it is reported in windows 7?
     
    SlickDude80, Jan 16, 2012
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  5. tijo

    tijo Sacred Blame

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    Do you by any chance has an optimus enabled system or the HD3000 as display adapter. The IGP uses sytem RAM so it amkes sense that a portion of that RAM is reserved for the IGP. Same thing on a T420 with 64-bit windows 4GB RAM, there is a portion that is reserved for the IGP. All my system that do not use an IGP have the full RAM reported as usable in system properties.
     
    tijo, Jan 16, 2012
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  6. Kdawgca

    Kdawgca rotaredoM repudrepuS RBN

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    In Vista SP1, they "dumb" it down, so that people wouldn't get shocked.

    Windows Vista SP1 includes reporting of Installed System Memory (RAM)
     
    Kdawgca, Jan 16, 2012
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  7. KLF

    KLF NBR Super Modernator Super Moderator

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    The 32bit OS limit is exactly 4096MB, then you subtract all the hardware and drivers and whatever using ram from that amount.

    Usually that is something between 3.8GB to 3.2GB but I remember having only ~2.8GB available on my 8510w when I tried XP on it, I didn't bother finding out why since it doesn't have any SLI graphic cards or something as fancy.
     
    KLF, Jan 16, 2012
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  8. SerratedAuto

    SerratedAuto Notebook Consultant

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    SerratedAuto, Jan 17, 2012
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