Too much RAM

[jmcdzzz]

Yessir you read it right. One of the faculty members at my University is a Cisco instructor. He has a brand new HP 6320 laptop with 4GB RAM. The problem is that the video is using almost a full GB of the available memory, leaving him with only 3 GB for other tasks. He does not need the video for games or anything like that so he doesn't need a lot.

I have looked in the BIOS and cannot find any way to change the RAM allocation. Is there a way within Windows XP Pro, or a freeware app, that I can reallocate the RAM so the video is not using so much?

The video chipset is Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS,910 GML Express

 

[paparazi]

XP has that habbit anyway, the more ram installed the more is allocated.
With 256mb installed that is typically around 190mb used
512mb around 240mb one gig over 300mb, so on and so forth.
Shared video on the other hand is normally set.

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[Nelviticus]

The 32-bit version of Windows can't support a full 4GB of user-available memory as it has to reserve some of the address space for hardware. If you really need a little more memory there's a switch that you can add to your boot.ini file which will let you use about 3GB, but unless 2GB isn't enough there's not much point. If you really need more than 3GB then you need to switch to a 64-bit version of Windows.

See here for more info (although it makes about as much sense as my post!):

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[cdogg]

Yes, Nelviticus is right on the money as usual.

The instructor assumed that the laptop was reserving 1GB for video, probably because he noticed the 1GB missing from the amount of RAM being reported by Windows.

The real reason is explained in that link above. Windows will still show that 3GB is available, but unless the /3GB switch is used at startup, it's really only using 2GB.

It is true that a 32-bit operating system like Windows XP supports up to 4GB of RAM. How it can be used by Windows is often misunderstood...

~cdogg
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