Thinkpads Forum

I just bought my w500 with a 4 gig ram . My computer shows it has memory of 4gb but the task manager only shows a total of 2519. What to do ?

What operating system are you using? 32 bit Windows operating systems won't see all of your 4 gb of ram.

This thread from the T60/T61 forum will probably answer all your questions:

http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... 29&t=49703

Barry

yes i am using windows 32 bit , but only seeing 2 gb ram is it normal? Is my computer utilizing the other 2 gb ram??

Windows XP? Windows Vista? Windows Server 2003? Windows Server 2008? Windows 3.1?

Windows XP and Windows Vista 32 bit should use 3 gb of the 4 gb of ram. It sounds like yours is doing that.

Try Erik's thread that I referred to.

i am using windows vista home premium , everything show its 4gig ram except the task manager -> physical ram..

@OP: Task Manager should report 3069 MB total. I would suggest your running a few passes of memtest86+ to verify the RAM health.

This thread at Lenovo Forums may also explain (or confuse ) the issue:

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/mess ... ing&page=1

rkawakami wrote:This thread at Lenovo Forums may also explain (or confuse ) the issue:

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/mess ... ing&page=1

Interesting link... I have just read through this thread at Lenovo forums, but I couldn´t find any reasonable explanation... (but there were a few statements with questionable accuracy ).

rkawakami wrote:This thread at Lenovo Forums may also explain (or confuse ) the issue:

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/mess ... ing&page=1

OKie problem solved msinfo32.exe shows installed ram is 4 gig , total isn't lol

I´m still curious if you can utilize all 3 GB

Mine only utilize 2519 ram , i guess that's close to 3 GB?

Zionsword wrote:Mine only utilize 2519 ram , i guess that's close to 3 GB?

Not close enough My assumption was that there is some bug in Task Manager showing the wrong amount of total available system memory. Get Process Explorer and see what it reports. Also, if you have some more heavy application, try launching it a few times till you reach the maximum of physical memory usage.

Process Explorer shows 2579528k of ram



Vista x32 will report different amounts of RAM depending on how you have your computer set up. If a user has 4 GB of RAM installed and a basic video card with say around 256 MB of video RAM windows will probably show between 3-3.25 GB of RAM available because the total amount of memory windows will see is 4 GB system wide. That includes video RAM, any memory attached to the motherboard, CPU cache, and then lastly your DDR RAM cards. Now if you take the same computer and upgrade your video card to say 2x512 video cards so a total of 1gb of video RAM. The amount of RAM windows will report then would drop to between 2-2.25 GB of RAM, due to your increase in video RAM. The BIOS will report all of the RAM installed because the BIOS is running in a 64 bit mode and is not limited to the 4 GB restriction on a 64 bit ready motherboard. If you wish to utilize all of the RAM installed in your computer I would suggest reinstalling windows using the 64 bit kernal.


9th post of http://www.vistax64.com/vista-hardware- ... l-ram.html

W500 has 2 graphic cards , does it explain this?


Is your w500 showing a different amount or isit just me ? I am afraid that i mess up my laptop if i run mem86 ram test.

A few things:
1. After SP1 Vista 32-bit can report the correct amount of RAM installed in the machine.
2. But this doesn´t mean that Vista 32-bit can utilize all of it. In fact Vista 32-bit can utilize max 3 GB (3096 MB of system memory).
3. I have an ATI card with 256 MB of dedicated VRAM, I can see and use all 3 GB addressable by my system ( only 3 GB due to chipset limitation).
4. Assuming the amount of VRAM has some effect on the addressable system memory in laptops, then somewhere you have lost 256 or more MB, because the Intel card has no dedicated VRAM, it uses system memory (up to 348 MB) according to the load, i.e. dynamically, so I don´t think it has locked those 256 MB. As an example, the ATI cards use Hypermemory technology, i.e. they utilize system memory in case they run out of VRAM, but it doesn´t mean that some amount of the system memory is dedicated to the ATI card because of this, it is dynamic.

So I don´t think this really explains the situation. But I could be wrong.

I guess the Process Explorer shows the correct amount of total addressable RAM Regarding memtest, I don´t think it will mess up your system, but now I don´t think it has something to say either, so leave it

Sorry for reviving an older thread, but it just occurred to me that the 2.5 RAM issue under Windows 32-bit might be due to "improper" setting in windows configuration utility. For Vista: run -> msconfig-> boot -> advanced options -> checked out the setting "maximum memory", it´s supposed to stay unchecked per default, so if this is in fact not the case, just uncheck the box and reboot. I´m curios as to whether this solves the 2.5 GB "issue" Also, there might be some similar setting for XP too.

my check box was unchecked and task manager shows only 2.5 total.
I have 2x2G Ram installed. on a 2.53 GHz Systemboard.

Thanks for the feedback! Then I guess the problem is somewhere else