memory question

[Preston Hagar]

On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 5:56 AM, Chris Jones <jonesc at hep.phy.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> I very much doubt that all your 'missing' ram (~750M) has been allocated
> to video though, probably at 128/256 MB, 512 at most. So the question is
> if you can get the rest back. It may well be because 32bit windows
> cannot use more than 3.2 GB, your bios may simply be assumes no one
> would ever care about this ram and is simply ignoring it with no option
> to use it.
>
> Chris
>

I think this is likely.  If you look at the tech specs in the online
manual for the laptop:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins640m/en/om/specs.htm#wp1054547

and scroll down to the Video section, you will see that, according to
the specs, the video card should not use more than 224 MB.  If you
look at Intel's page for the graphic card chipset:

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma950/index.htm

This reconfirms the 224 MB maximum.

Back on the Dell tech specs in the first link, however, it lists the
maximum memory amount as 2GB.  I have seen other motherboards that,
although they support 64-bit processors, still have a < 4 GB RAM
limitation due to either some poor board design or dumb BIOS
limitation.  My guess would be that this probably may be some kind of
BIOS issue, but that is just a guess.

Preston