Memory Loss

[Wguy2008]

I recently upgraded my system and installed 2 GB of RAM (already had 2 GB). At the beginning, my memory was working properly (I saw all 4GB from Task Manager). I have not adjusted anything in the BIOS at the moment. However, after doing Windows update, I noticed that the memory became 3GB (from Task Manager). Any ideas or solutions to this ?

[SANDESH49]

It sounds to me like you might have bad memory (RAM). Open your PC cover and removing one RAM and try running the system. Try this with each RAM stick and you may be able to determine that one of them is faulty.

[Fryderyk]

The confusion may be related to a somewhat obscure issue called memory addressing. Until recently, Windows and the hardware it runs on have used 32-bit addressing. This limits total memory to what can be represented by a 32-bit binary number, a bit more than 4 billion bytes. Your computer certainly be having the 32-bit version of Windows.

This limits you to 4GB of physical memory. But the available user memory is less than that (3GB in your case) because the system reserves a chunk for its own use.

[Marthaz]

Probably your graphics card is using the rest of the memory, as shared memory. It is normal for motherboards with onboard video, etc.

[Gunilla]

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