Windows Vista reporting 510 megs of memory installed...no matter what I install???

[TheDarkKnight]

I just bought 2 gigs of Patriot DDR2-PC2-6400 2x1GB 4-4-4-12 sticks of memory to replace the pathetic 512MB that an older eMachine came from the factory with. I was very excited to see the peformance gains this would result in and it basically feels like there aren't any. It's still as slow as molasses. I took a couple of screenshots to show what's going on. Something doesn't look right.

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One of the above screenshots is reporting only 510MB of physical memory, yet when I right-click on "My Computer" it shows 2.0GB of memory. Also, CPU-ID correctly shows that 2GB of memory are installed. What's up with Vista Task Manager showing only 510MB? Can somebody tell me whats going on here? The system is running Windows Vista 32-bit version with 2GB(as of today) of physically installed memory. 2x1GB memory sticks(one each in their own memory channel slot.

I tried taking one of the 1GB memory sticks back out and rebooting into Windows Vista to see if the physical memory report changed on the "Task Manager" screen. It didn't. It still reports 510meg. Thanks for reading.

 

[ViRGE]

Huh. I can safely say I've never seen anything quite like that.

How much memory is being reserved by the IGP? I'm almost wondering if it isn't trying to reserve 1.5GB to itself.

Oh, and what does DXDiag say for installed memory?

 

[gmaster456]

Hmm. Interesting, I've dealt with a lot of strange stuff but I don't recall coming upon anything like that. Have you gone into the BIOS and poked around in there to see what that says?

 

[TerryMathews]

Run bcdedit and see if any of the memory options are set like burnmemory or truncatememory.

 

[TheDarkKnight]

Run bcdedit and see if any of the memory options are set like burnmemory or truncatememory.

You are a computer genius my friend. You gave me the idea to launch msconfig.exe and poke around in there for a setting that might be similar to what you were suggesting. And I found it:

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I simply unticked the ticked box and restarted the computer. Which gave me access to "all" the installed memory.

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Time to put the other 1GB memory stick back in. I won't have to junk this computer after all. I know that 2GB of memory isn't the most in the world but....dayyyuuummm....I didn't think it was as slow as it was acting either. Very happy now.

 

[TerryMathews]

You are a computer genius my friend. You gave me the idea to launch msconfig.exe and poke around in there for a setting that might be similar to what you were suggesting. And I found it:

[/URL]

I simply unticked the ticked box and restarted the computer. Which gave me access to "all" the installed memory.

[/URL]

Time to put the other 1GB memory stick back in. I won't have to junk this computer after all. I know that 2GB of memory isn't the most in the world but....dayyyuuummm....I didn't think it was as slow as it was acting either. Very happy now.

:beer:

 

[Ketchup]

If I can bring this back up to the top, and I very glad TerryMathews was able to help here, but:
1. why would manufacturers set that option at all, or
2. is there anything that would cause/application that option to be checked?

This is at least the second time I have heard of that option limiting a memory upgrade. I am sure there would be some rare cases where that would come in handy, but I doubt any would apply to a consumer laptop.

 

[TerryMathews]

If I can bring this back up to the top, and I very glad TerryMathews was able to help here, but:
1. why would manufacturers set that option at all, or
2. is there anything that would cause/application that option to be checked?

This is at least the second time I have heard of that option limiting a memory upgrade. I am sure there would be some rare cases where that would come in handy, but I doubt any would apply to a consumer laptop.

There are a number of conceivable scenarios:

Top- OEM greed. Back in the day, Apple was famous for using software to limit otherwise identical machines by which "line" it was from.

Remainder- memory defect in a known location (setting the machine to ignore the top xx megabytes because its not reliable), software of drivers are unverified/known to not work with higher amounts of memory.