Windows 7 64-bit and still using only 3GB of RAM

adiabatic

New Member
I've installed Windows 7 on a Toshiba A100-VA9 laptop (Core2Duo T5500 [64-bit capable], Intel 945 chipset, 4GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 256MB video). A little investigation shows Windows using 3GB and 1GB of RAM is being assigned to the video card in addition to its 256 MB of dedicated RAM.

Any ideas here?

Windows 7 64-bit runs fine, seems stable but I really want to use all my RAM. Previously I was running Vista 32-bit so I can't compare memory availability with Vista 64-bit.
 
That's probably because your PC isn't pulling for anywhere near that 3 GB.
It assigns the extra video memory based on need.
If you were actually using something that took the 4 GB of RAM (Like editing a large movie, or doing a high res photo manipulation in Photoshop) then you'd see the PC use all or close to all of that RAM.
 
That's probably because your PC isn't pulling for anywhere near that 3 GB.
It assigns the extra video memory based on need.
If you were actually using something that took the 4 GB of RAM (Like editing a large movie, or doing a high res photo manipulation in Photoshop) then you'd see the PC use all or close to all of that RAM.

Hm. Dynamically allocated VRAM above the 256 MB on-board would be an undocumented feature on this laptop. I'll load up the applications and see what happens.
 
pretty simple: right click on my computer -> properties and just see how much RAM windows detects. if it's 4GB you're alright.

regards
 
That's probably because your PC isn't pulling for anywhere near that 3 GB.
It assigns the extra video memory based on need.

After a bit of reading I've discovered that the onboard video has 128MB dedicated VRAM + 128MB system RAM. What seems to happen with more than 3GB installed is Vista and Windows7 assigning all RAM above 3GB to the video card.

I'd assume that memory would be released if needed but it is just silly to see 1GB being assigned to VRAM... that's a totally unnecessary amount of RAM even as a starting point for a dynamic number.
 
I've seen it assign as much as 2 GB to VRAM.
Windows doesn't think before it acts, so to speak.
 
I've installed Windows 7 on a Toshiba A100-VA9 laptop (Core2Duo T5500 [64-bit capable], Intel 945 chipset, 4GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 256MB video). A little investigation shows Windows using 3GB and 1GB of RAM is being assigned to the video card in addition to its 256 MB of dedicated RAM.

Any ideas here?

Windows 7 64-bit runs fine, seems stable but I really want to use all my RAM. Previously I was running Vista 32-bit so I can't compare memory availability with Vista 64-bit.

Have you looked in the BIOS to see if the amount of system ram allocated to video is configured there?
 
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