why 3.86gb usable out of 4gb in Win7 x64 and dedicated graphics.

I have dedicated graphics, see signature and no intergrated gpu steeling memory, so why only 3.86gb ?? , I am not bothered about the 0.14gb but i would like to know why it does not show full 4gb.

Thanks

John.

 

I think its either reserved for other hardware, or does your video card have anything like after it uses up all the dedicated memory, it starts using system memory?

 

The video card has an 1gb of it`s own dedicated memory, it should not need any more, it can use some system memory but it should not need too.

 

A number of pieces of hardware may reserve some memory and/or address ranges for their own purposes. This includes not only the graphics card (doesn't matter if it's integrated or dedicated), but various controllers as well. Things also depend on your hardware: Some chipsets (used to) only support addresses within the 4GB range, despite 64-bit support.

 

Then it probably is anyway due to the switchable graphics.

 

I dont have switchable graphics, unless you mean the gpu built into the i5 , though it is not usable on my notebook.

 

Then idk what could be using the memory.

 

Could be a number of things. To find out you will probably have to do some investigating.

FYI AFAIK the properties screen will only show (x.xx GB usable) when there is more than 0.1GB unavailable. ie with 4GB installed if you had 3.91GB usable you would only see 4.00 GB whereas if it dropped to 3.90GB or below you would get the usable amount in brackets. Might be better to look under the Resource Monitor Physical Memory tab for the amount of hardware reserved memory.

It would seem 128GB is being used for something. Are you sure your BIOS isn't being naughty and reserving it for your IGD even though your not using it? This would mean even with 2GB installed you would end up with 1.86GB usable.

Try the E820 function and also look under msinfo32 memory hardware resources to see if you can find some clues.

 

I ran the msinfo32 , below is the memory section

 

Since i only have an 60gb SSD, I have installed Win7 x86 as it does not use as much space as x64 version, also windows now says i have 3.36gb of my 4.00gb usable, so i did not loose much memory anyway by changing to Win7 x86

 

Well msinfo32 didn't give away anything obvious. How did you go with E820? Here's mine for my laptop.



Notice the last entry at address 00000001 00000000. This is remapped memory but because its physical address is above 4GB then in a client 32-bit windows OS the memory is ignored. In other words although I have 4092MB of usable RAM 32-bit Windows will not normally use that remapped 1024MB leaving only 3068MB for the system.

 

What is E820? , where can i download it.

 

e820 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you want to run it under windows then I can only think of the freely available applications here under "Directions". You'll just need Admin rights for a cmd box with 32-bit but for 64-bit either disable driver signing at boot (F8) or make a cert and self-sign and boot with test signing.