[vvuuren]

Setup : Toshiba notebook with Intel Core 2 Duo, 2x 2GB RAM, ATi HD2600 Mobility Radeon, Vista business 32 bit

Memory : Total = 3096, Cached = 2175, Free = 0
Graphics : Total Available = 1535, Dedicated = 256, Shared System Mem = 1279

Question : I have installed 4GB of ram and in "basic information about your computer" it shows 4.00 GB yet in task manager the total shows as 3096, why is this that it doesnt show the full 4GB in task manager?

 

[deleted122510]

You're operating system is 32-bit, meaning you can only have 3.2GBs of ram. Source.

 

[vvuuren]

Is there a 64 bit version of Vista Business available?

and is it worth upgrading to?

 

[deleted122510]

Yes, there is a x64 version available, you can upgrade - yes.

"An in place upgrade from 32-bit windows to 64-bit windows isn't supported or recommended under any version of Windows. A fresh installation is required. "

Source.

 

[vvuuren]

Thank you.

Last Question :
I noticed on the link that you provided that they were talking about I/O and I was wondering if that would include the mobility graphics card?

Or does the graphics card use some of the 3096 available RAM as shared mem?

 

[deleted122510]

I'm sorry, I'm not entirely sure - This may sound stupid (since I literally don't have the slightest clue about hardware) but doesn't ram have it's own memory supply as in.. ram?

If so, that would answer your questions pretty much, correct?

 

[vvuuren]

I gues so, he he he... thanx again!

 

[McNinja]

Dedicated ram
In my case = 896mb on my GTX 260
highest possible amount of shared ram = 2.67gb

Shared ram is ram taken from the RAM itself.

To check the how much ram is shared and the other properties of your graphics run Dxdiag

For XP do this
start menu
run
type "dxdiag" without quotation marks

For Vista do this
start menu
type "dxdiag"

look for the display tab
you save it as a log file and upload it here

You're going to have to find the correct drivers for you laptop as they extremely reliant on it. Your current laptop may not support 64 bit too.

Whats the exact make and model of your laptop.

 

[jenae]

Hi, it might help if we simply explained how memory is used, this for your video card question.Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista are 32-bit operating systems supporting a physical address range of up to 4 GB.
However this range is sub-divided to manage both the computer’s PCI address range (also known as MMIO Memory Management I\O) and RAM.
The PCI address range is used to manage much of the computer’s components including the BIOS, IO cards, networking, PCI hubs, bus bridges, PCI-Express, and today’s high performance video/graphics cards (including their video memory).

A high performance x86-based computer typically needs 0.6 to 1 GB for the PCI address range.On boot up the BIOS allocates PCI addresses down from 4 GB to manage the computer’s components, then the BIOS allocates physical
user RAM from address 0 up to the bottom of the PCI address range or up to the amount of installed physical RAM, which ever is less. The upper limit on available physical RAM is usually between 3 GB and 3.4 GB.

Sorry about the way this reads however it will not accept my edits... lucky to be able to post I have terrible trouble with this site :sigh:

 

[vvuuren]

Here are the results from the DX Diagnostics :

It also includes model informatio etc on my laptop.