OK, Random question as my Google-fu is failing me. Installed Windows 7 64-bit on a machine with 4GB Ram. PCI-E GPU is installed and onboard disabled. There are no 64-bit memory options in the BIOS. Machine is a DELL Vostro 200. Windows however is showing that there is only 3.25GB usable memory with 4GB installed. I've checked the "maximum memory" options in msconfig > boot > advanced to no avail. Any ideas why this is happening and how to resolve? I should note that this has worked fine on this machine before, the only thing that's changed is that a new HDD has been installed due to the old one failing.
Not meaning to be rude, just before everyone looks for some really complicated reason; it definitely is 64-bit Windows 7?
It's a good point, sometimes 64 and 32 can be on the same disk, what does it say in system properties?
Hee hee. Yep, it's 64-bit alright. System properties indicates so. Resource monitor is indicating 770MB reserved memory, I just cant figure out what is reserving it as I've turned my onboard GPU off in favour of a PCI-E device.
even if the GPU is turned off im sure ive seen bios settings before that allow you to Reserve memory for it regardless of whether its disabled.
I've tried removing the GPU and switching back to onboard and re-installing the OS from scratch. The BIOS has the lowest memory value for the GPU set (I think its 128MB) yet 770MB remains reserved. Only thing left to try is the actual sticks of memory I guess!
Not necessarily, Video cards and Ram aren't the only things to take up address space and resources, do you have access to an old disk you could do an fresh install of windows on with your new disk removed?
Fixed with a BIOS update of all things. Weird that it was working before, but if it solves it I guess!
I don't get how it was working before; but there was a BIOS bug in some Dells that meant they couldn't see/use more than 3.25GB no matter how much was installed, maybe had something to do with that.
