Sony Vaio - Upgraded RAM... question.

[Defiantsadist]

Ok well if any of you read my post a few weeks ago, I did in fact get the vaio I saw. Now, I also got the RAM upgrade I wanted, I'm now running 2gigs instead of one but in the control panel it still says I'm running only 1014Mb(1gig right?) of RAM.. shouldn't it say 2014?

My laptop runs great, it's fast on the internet, downloaded the songs I wanted off my CD's(Bout 2 gigs worth), and just overall seems really great. One question though, Could I maybe get away with an online game if I got really bored and decided to put one on here? I'm not talking something with an assault of tons of colors, maybe something like City of Heroes, or WoW. That kinda stuff. Would it handle that? My processor is running at 2.0Ghz and I have 2 gigs of RAM so the only problem I would see is the Video card, which I'm sure isn't that great.

Thanks for Any Feedback,
Steven

 

[PC eye]

You should be seeing something more like 2,048 rather then the usual 1,024 or close if 2gb of memory is actually installed. One free tool you can throw on fast to see just what is the hardware as well as software story there is called the System Info for Windows(SIW) tool found at http://www.gtopala.com/

Laptops often suffer with the video cards you see them come with. That part is nothing new for the laptop owners here at CF for certain. What model is the Sony Vaio there? A good look over of the specifications to see what it will support will be the idea for any hardwares upgrades htere.

 

[Defiantsadist]

You should be seeing something more like 2,048 rather then the usual 1,024 or close if 2gb of memory is actually installed

Is it possible that I have the RAM installed wrong? Would that be why it still says 1024?

And according to the software in the link you gave me my physical memory is at 1024 and my virtual memory is 2282. What's the difference between the two?

Thanks,
Steven

 

[PC eye]

The 1024 to start with is the actual physical memory installed while the amount for virtual memory is based on the size of a paging file created to use hard drive space to more or less add to the amount of actual memory. Generally that is about 2 to 2.5 times the amount of physical memory unless the let Windows manage virtual memory option is set or the creation of the paging file is disabled completely.

With the SIW tool pointing at only 1gb total you never received 2gb of physical memory but only 1gb when buying the Vaio there unless one dimm was bad. But that would also sound an alarm with a bios beep code if bad memory was detected.

Another program that will accurately keep up with the hardware monitor for reading cpu, board, drive, and video temps is callled PC Wizard 2008. The free prgram also displays the various types of information on make, model, and speed of the cpu, make and model of board, drives, etc. can be found at http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php

 

[Defiantsadist]

After about 40 minutes of frustration about trying to find somewhere in the control panel to install the ram manually, I finally just powered down and popped off the plate and noticed that one of the disks wasn't all the wya tight against the hinge.. i slid it in more, powered on, all the sudden the laptop recognized new hardware, and I'm now running 2gigs of RAM.. things seem to be moving much smoother too. woot!

 

[PC eye]

Ouch! alright So it turned out that you had one sodimm not seated properly. That there will explain why you were only seeing 1gb and not the 2gb. Run a tool like memtest anyways just to see that no harm was seen with that simply being suspended in air. Hopefully it wasn't damaged from how it was shipped out to you!

Keep the SIW tool anyways for future use. That gives you a good look at what softwares are installed as hardwares on any system. Another good diagnostic for a look at temp and voltages in both XP and Vista is the PC Wizard 2008 version. At least you have the full 2gb now being seen and can see the improvement.

PC Wizard 2009 is found at http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php You will have to disregard the "not responding" message when it first loads however. That was one item noticed with it. Once it loads fully you then usually see more accurate temp readings over other programs worked with.