installed 512 MB of RAM but doesnt show all of it

[ubamous3]

hi,

i had 512 MB of RAM installed on this computer but it only shows 479 MB total on my winbar screen; as i remember, it was 2 256MB sticks (and i have no idea what kind of memory it is;i had someone else do it, but i am lsting the specs from aida32 here); can someone tell me what the problem is please? thank u!

Motherboard Name Jetway 866AS(E)/866AS ULTRA (RAID)/866ASR RAID/868AS (PRO)/V333DA/V333PRO/V333U

Front Side Bus Properties:
Bus Type DEC Alpha EV6
Bus Width 64-bit
Real Clock 133 MHz (DDR)
Effective Clock 267 MHz
Bandwidth 2133 MB/s

Memory Bus Properties:
Bus Type DDR SDRAM
Bus Width 64-bit
Real Clock 133 MHz (DDR)
Effective Clock 267 MHz
Bandwidth 2133 MB/s

--------
Physical Memory:
Total 479 MB
Used 200 MB
Free 278 MB
Utilization 42 %

Swap Space:
Total 1152 MB
Used 347 MB
Free 805 MB
Utilization 30 %

Virtual Memory:
Total 1631 MB
Used 547 MB
Free 1084 MB
Utilization 34 %

Problems & Suggestions:
Suggestion Install more system memory to improve applications performance.

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also, based on the specs above, can i add 1 more 512 MB RAM stick to this motherboard or its full already? and what kind do i have to get for compatibility reasons?

 

[weboneando]

Does your MOBO has an integrated video controller? if yes then the missing ram is allocated to the video controller.

 

[ubamous3]

hi weboneando

thanks for responding; yes, i just found out today that the onboard videocard is the reason for it being less than 512 MB


do u think i should add more memory to thsi computer? i m on windows 2000 pro and do multitask alot and have 5 HD installed on this computer,so taking all that into consideration, is it worth the investment to add 512 MB more and does my mobo support another 512 stick (based on the spec i got from aida32)? i dont know anything about it

 

[weboneando]

Having more ram will benefit task that use very large files or lots of files, by the info that you posted you seem to be doing fine with what you have, if you see a slowdown when running apps then consider adding another 512

 

[LTR12101B]

With the RAM only 42% used, it isn't looking short of ram, though there's a sizeable swapfile usage.

It would probably be uneconomic to try to run Windows with NO swapfile usage - if things which aren't needed NOW end up in the swapfile, it really doesn't hurt much - it's only when the active workload can't fit in memory that you get performance damaging thrashing.

The Memory would appear to be DDR266 - that is PC2100 (or better) DIMM.
With very few exceptions (a large memory bug in Win9x), there is no such thing as too much memory, but there is a line where nothing is to be gained - you'd need to check the utilization "all up" to get a better idea - that's with your expected maximum load - office suite (as many parts as you use together), browser etc.

The one exception - if you regularly process CD-size WAV files, load it with a Gig of RAM - this allows many editors to work totally in memory, instead of using swapfile or temp files.