Acer 9524 Laptop 4GB Memory Remapping Problem

[supergex]

Hi,

First of all, I'm new here and I just wanted to thank all writers on this website, you published amazing articles and reviews, very technical and detailed and I love that.


Here is my issue:
Laptop Acer 9524 (in standard 2x1GB of memory)
Graphic Card: Geforce 7600Go (256 MB dedicated)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit

I recently changed my memory sticks to 2x2GB. According to the manual of my laptop I can have 4GB of memory in my system if I use a 64bit OS.
The thing is I obviously have 4GB installed but only 3GB usable.

If I check the advanced properties of my graphical card:
- Total Available Graphics Memory: 1535 MB
- Dedicated Video Memory: 256 MB
- System Video Memory: 0 MB
- Shared System Memory: 1279 MB

So I guess my 1GB memory lost is taken by the graphical card. Unfortunately I really need this 1GB because I'm using a lot of greedy applications and I would only need 512/768MB of Shared System Memory.

How can I decrease this Shared system Memory, if it's possible of course?

Tests performed:
- I tried to install original graphical driver from Acer website
- different Nvidia Forceware drivers (now I'm using 190.73)
- swap the two memory sticks
- I updated the bios (no settings related to graphical memory)

I looked through Google for hours and I hope someone could help me.

Thank you very much in advance.
Season Greetings

Hi, this isn't a Video issue, but rather it's a general system/motherboard issue. Your motherboard needs to remap some things to expose the last 1GB of memory to the OS. As such I'm moving this over to our Notebook forum

-ViRGE

 

[Painman]

Well, sometimes a sytem has a BIOS option called "memory hole for PCI MMIO" and this can enable memory mapping above the 4 GB mark.

That's not always the name, but look for that option.

What CPU family does your laptop support?

 

[eggrolls]

I think the Shared System Memory is only used by the graphics card when needed. Otherwise, that memory is available for other programs.

On the other hand, System Video Memory is system RAM that is dedicated to graphics. This memory isn't available to programs under any conditions. If your computer had an integrated GPU, then this number would be > 0 MB.

 

[ViRGE]

Just to add to what I said in my note, a quick check of the introduction date for that laptop pegs it at January of 2006, which means it was likely built with an Intel 945 chipset.

My Google-fu tells me that the 945 has a design "flaw" (I hesitate to use that term since it implies it wasn't intentional) where it only has 4GB of addressing space, even in 64bit mode. Due to that reason, there is no space above 4GB to remap video and other ancillary functions, so they have to be remapped below 4GB. This in turn limits the amount of RAM the operating system can access, even when it's a 64bit operating system.

In short, there's nothing you can do to get your missing RAM. Sorry.

 

[supergex]

Well, sometimes a sytem has a BIOS option called "memory hole for PCI MMIO" and this can enable memory mapping above the 4 GB mark.

I don't have this kind of option in the Bios.

What CPU family does your laptop support?

• Technology mobile Intel® Centrino® Duo, with:
• Processeur Intel® Core™ Duo T2300/T2400/T2500/
T2600/T2700 (Mémoire cache N2 de 2 Mo, 1,66/
1,83/2/2.16/2.33 GHz, FSB de 667 MHz)
• Processeur Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5500/T5600
(Mémoire cache N2 de 2 Mo, 1,66/1,83 GHz, FSB
de 667 MHz), prenant en charge Intel® Extended
Memory 64 Technology (Intel® EM64T)
• Processeur Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200/T7400/T7600
(Mémoire cache N2 de 4 Mo, 2/2,16/2,33 GHz, FSB
de 667 MHz), prenant en charge Intel® Extended
Memory 64 Technology (Intel® EM64T)
• Chipset Mobile Intel® 945PM Express

I think the Shared System Memory is only used by the graphics card when needed. Otherwise, that memory is available for other programs.

Unfortunately this is not my case. When I reach 3GB of use, it doesn't use the shared system memory but my swap file.

In short, there's nothing you can do to get your missing RAM. Sorry

Thank you for this perfectly clear answer. I had some doubt about it; indeed I read something in an article about Windows remap bios feature, and I think there was some stuff regarding a limitation in the memory addressing space in some systems.

Thanks again for your answers. Have a nice holidays.