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Thread ID: 48430	2004-08-22 22:22:00	Shared memory (512MB) shows up as 384MB	Myke (3277)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
264342	2004-08-22 22:22:00	Hey, I've just brought a Compaq nx9110, it has a 128mb Radeon graphics card and 512mb RAM (Shared). Why share RAM when you have a graphics card with a reasonable amount of memory? Anyway, from My Computer, Properties I only see 384MB RAM. System info indicates that there are 512MB. I checked with the vendor and they told me that it had 512MB, I think that a 256 module is built in and shared. Anyway, he explained that I could adjust some settings to change that senario. I didn't really listen much more figuring I knew what to do... No matter what I try windows is still saying 384MB RAM. Why? I can only find settings for performance and turning of flash display type things. Any thoughts?	Myke (3277)
264343	2004-08-22 22:27:00	Even though it has an ATI graphics card it is stil using 128MB of the system RAM for the graphics card. 512MB - 128MB = 384MB left for the system. The graphics card doesn't have it's own RAM in that model of laptop. In the BIOS you may be able to tell the laptop to only share 64MB with the graphics card but you will never get the full 512MB back for windows unless you upgrade the RAM :D	CYaBro (73)
264344	2004-08-22 22:46:00	Hmmm, I guess a memory upgrade some time in the future will be needed. Some specs sheets occur to me to be less than honest. Nevermind. It is still a nice machine. It'll be interesting to see how it handles video (which is why I was keen on 512 with 128 memory in the card, which apparently does not exist). Would I be better off leaving 128 with the graphics or moving to 64? Cheers	Myke (3277)
264345	2004-08-24 01:35:00	Well, it's not "really" misleading. :D They assume you know that a laptop has a video chipset on the motherboard, not a physical video card with its own memory. It's a matter of space in the case. Simplest way to find out if you should reduce the shared memory to 64MB is to try it. If it still does everything you want, that's the right setting, and you'll gain 64MB for MS to use. ;-)	Graham L (2)
264346	2004-08-24 01:51:00	Many of the laptops using the radeon chipset have their own dedicated ram that is independent of the system ram,not in this case though. I wouldn't have called it misleading,although i would sugest some real research before making a purchase of a few thousand dollars,of course if that had been undertaken they would have a nicy shiny powerful asus laptop instead of a compaq	metla (154)
264347	2004-08-24 14:08:00	> unless you upgrade the RAM Unless you upgrade the graphics.	mikebartnz (21)
264348	2004-08-24 20:50:00	Goodness metla, Don't you watch TV ? Compaq have much bigger ads than Asus, so they must be good. R2	R2x1 (4628)
264349	2004-08-27 12:46:00	> Hey, > I've just brought a Compaq nx9110, it has a 128mb > Radeon graphics card and 512mb RAM (Shared). Why > share RAM when you have a graphics card with a > reasonable amount of memory? > > Anyway, from My Computer, Properties I only see 384MB > RAM. System info indicates that there are 512MB. I > checked with the vendor and they told me that it had > 512MB, I think that a 256 module is built in and > shared. > > Anyway, he explained that I could adjust some > settings to change that senario. I didn't really > listen much more figuring I knew what to do... > > No matter what I try windows is still saying 384MB > RAM. Why? I can only find settings for performance > and turning of flash display type things. > > Any thoughts? How clear is the paper work , What did the sales person really say?? You Brought this as 512 + 168 g/card. It is not what you have, these people do this all the time and get away with it. My advise, Take it back, do the seal thing in a shop full of customers, get a free ram upgrade to at least what you understood you were buying, or your money back	drb1 (4492)
264350	2004-08-27 22:40:00	>Don't you watch TV ? Compaq have much bigger ads than Asus, so they must be good. It has to be true! I read it on the internet!	Growly (6)
264351	2004-08-27 23:26:00	> How clear is the paper work , What did the sales > person really say?? > > You Brought this as 512 + 168 g/card. It is not what > you have, these people do this all the time and get > away with it. > > My advise, Take it back, do the seal thing in a shop > full of customers, get a free ram upgrade to at least > what you understood you were buying, or your money > back Read the original post. It was bought with 512 MB of shared memory Thats all that is required to be stated. It has 512 MB. "Shared" can only have the one meaning these days, its in common usage related to computer memory. The advice to make a scene in the shop is a little unwise in reality. Caveat Emptor, however its still got adequate RAM for most purposes. I doubt any difference would be noticed by increasing it, however throttling the shared portion back to 32 or 64 MB would be quite viable. My laptop uses shared RAM, normally I have it on 32 MB. It had 256 MB shared and I increased it to 512 (less the 32 shared) but noticed no difference at all in performance.	godfather (25)
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