Can someone explain this apparent lack of usable memory? (32-bit)

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Blue_Dragon360

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Dec 9, 2013
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I have recently purchased a ram upgrade from 2GB to 4GB. I had some problems with the installation, but after some troubleshooting I got it working. It currently displays 4GB in the system information section of the control panel.

My understanding of how it works is that a 32 bit windows 7 has a 3.5GB-4GB ram limit, and that windows need to reserve some amount of ram for the operating system.

The thing is, my upgraded usable ram is 2.43GB, while I would think it'd be 3.36GB at minimum, as previous to the upgrade my usable ram was 1.86GB. Therefore, there's 0.14GB that's used by windows, as I had 2GB at the time. (2GB minus 1.86GB).

Anyway, that's my thought process, I'm probably just overlooking something, I won't pretend I know all that much about ram! :p

Can someone tell me if this is expected, or a glitch, and if the latter, how to fix?
Thanks. :)
System specs:
Lenovo Thinkpad L512
Windows 7 32 bit
 
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aevm

aevm

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May 18, 2007
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Do you have a graphics card with a lot of RAM in there? Windows 32-bit needs to allocate memory space to the VRAM on the card, which reduces the amount of DDR3 system RAM it can use. E.g. on my old PC I had XP 32-bit, 0.75 GB of RAM on the video card, and XP was seeing 3.25 GB.
 
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Blue_Dragon360

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Dec 9, 2013
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I don't think I have a graphics card, just integrated, in an i3 CPU. In my hardware manager it says under display adapters "Intel(R) HD graphics"
 
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Blue_Dragon360

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Dec 9, 2013
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Is there a way to find out what's taking it up? I find it strange because I previously had 2GB and had no where near the amount of RAM being deducted from the usable. Previously, the amount of RAM available was 1.86GB, just a 0.14GB difference from that and the total, while now it's a 1.57GB difference. (Assuming the OS is able to utilize the full 4GB)
 
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aevm

aevm

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May 18, 2007
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Trying to get my head around it...

1612 MB = 1.57 GB = hardware reserved. I will assume it was the same before and after your RAM upgrade

Before, you had 2GB of RAM. Windows was splitting its 4 GB address space like this:
1.86 GB as normal RAM, available to apps
0.14 GB "hardware reserved" used by drivers, it has to be at low addresses, mapped against the first 2GB
1.43 GB "hardware reserved" mapped against the upper 2GB, didn't hurt because you didn't have RAM there
0.57 GB address space not used at all

After, you had 4GB of RAM. The same 4GB address space is now split the same way, except the last 0.57GB is now used

So you jumped from 1.86 available before, to 1.86+0.57 available after.

I still don't see why you've got so much RAM in hardware reserved state. It should have been over 512 MB but not by much.
 
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