Laptop not registering all of my Gigs of RAM

Oddler

Oddler

Member
I have 4 Gigs of RAM on this laptop that came prebuilt in when I bought it. When I turned on the laptop for the first time...the computer said I only had 3 Gigs of RAM.

This is actually the second time this has happened. I just recovered my computer back to it's factory settings and it says I have 3 Gigs of RAM instead of 4. It did this a long time ago when I bought it but somehow it eventually recognized (I don't know how...) that I had 4 Gigs of RAM after I guess a few weeks...I'm not sure HOW it registered it but same deal is happening...although I don't know if it will register it if I did something before that got me lucky so it realized it had 4 inside of it.

Does anyone know why it's doing this?

I have 4 Gigs of RAM
2.5 core duo processor
Vista 32 home
500 Gigs of HD

Another thing...when I recovered my laptop instead of having two drives with 250 Gig HDs...I now have 1 Hard Drive of like 460 HD....what's up with that.

Yeah, so that's two questions :)
 
is it not beacuse of a microsoft update?

try going onto microsofts site and downloading all there updates including service pack 1
 
You have 32-bit operating system!! Thats the reason it sees only 3-3.25gb out of 4...nothing you can do about that unless you switch to a 64-bit o/s

Also, you need to partition your 500gb drive..

unless u mean you have 2 drives? but..then I'm lost as to what you mean

and 460 out of 500 makes sense..there is never full rated capacity on the actual drive and you need to take into account vista and start up programs, drivers, etc.
 
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scooter said:
You have 32-bit operating system!! Thats the reason it sees only 3-3.25gb out of 4...nothing you can do about that unless you switch to a 64-bit o/s

Also, you need to partition your 500gb drive..

unless u mean you have 2 drives? but..then I'm lost as to what you mean

and 460 out of 500 makes sense..there is never full rated capacity on the actual drive and you need to take into account vista and start up programs, drivers, etc.
Click to expand...

i agree with what you are saying-32bit os systems only register 3-3.5gig of ram, problem was that i only know this for 32bit xp..

i went off what the guy said-that when he first got it that it would not recognise all 4gig but after a while it did.

after system restore it went back to the less, i put 2 and 2 together and come up with the fact either he was seeing things or some updates made it possible for 32bit vista to register 4gig!!

can some one else shed a light on this?

sorry not 100% up to date with vista 32bit as i only use 64bit vista

no harm done as he would need updates anyway lol
 
funkysnair said:
i agree with what you are saying-32bit os systems only register 3-3.5gig of ram, problem was that i only know this for 32bit xp..

i went off what the guy said-that when he first got it that it would not recognise all 4gig but after a while it did.

after system restore it went back to the less, i put 2 and 2 together and come up with the fact either he was seeing things or some updates made it possible for 32bit vista to register 4gig!!

can some one else shed a light on this?

sorry not 100% up to date with vista 32bit as i only use 64bit vista

no harm done as he would need updates anyway lol
Click to expand...

Yes, Vista 32 bit with the SP1 update allows 4 gig to be seen as long as certain hardware criteria is met. As you say Funky, he didn't have it, then he did, now he does'nt so it looks like when he downloaded SP1 he could read it.
 
TFT said:
Yes, Vista 32 bit with the SP1 update allows 4 gig to be seen as long as certain hardware criteria is met. As you say Funky, he didn't have it, then he did, now he does'nt so it looks like when he downloaded SP1 he could read it.
Click to expand...

i am sure i remember someone talking about it a while ago...

i couldnt be 100% sure but thanx for the clear up TFT
 
The laptop came with 4 Gigs and Vista 32...not sure why they'd make it inferior like that :P

All I did was download Service Pack #1 for Vista 32 and BAM 4 Gigs finally returned. Thanks for the help :)
 
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