# 1024mb ram has dropped to 896mb!!! please help



## azauk (Apr 28, 2007)

Hi i bought an advent 7102 laptop last year and it came with 1024mb of ram which i needed to help it push on with my 3d animation projects, and around three months ago the ram dropped to 896mb

various programs and windows now say i only have 896 and i was wondering if i could resolve this.
here are the specs:

CPU - AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+ processor 
BIOS - Award BIOS. Press DEL to enter 
Chipset - ATI Radeon Xpress 200 
Hard Drive - 100GB 
Memory - 1GB PC2700 DDR SODIMM (2 memory slots. Max 1GB) 
Video Card - ATI Radeon Xpress 200M IGP (128mb) 
Made By - ECS 331 
OS - Vista ultimate (was xp home and problem occured while it was xp not vista)


before i go and buy more ram for memory sucking vista i need to know if thers hope, any help would be great

thanks
Aaron (first post!) :wave:


----------



## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

You video card is using the ram because it is and integrated gpu.


----------



## azauk (Apr 28, 2007)

but when i got my laptop it performed a little faster and clearly said i had 1024mb of ram?

also when i run tuneup it tells me to upgrade to 1024mb! when i should have it now :upset:


----------



## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

And you can't just get more?
Have you tryed to run ccc and reduced the memorey buffer on the gpu so you make you gpu a 64 mb and gain back that ram?


----------



## azauk (Apr 28, 2007)

in english :4-dontkno 

sorry


----------



## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

Do you have this? http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vista32/common-vista32.html


----------



## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

The very top one.


----------



## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

there is a setting in the bios where you can set the amount of ram allocated to the video
as you load more onto your h/drive the computer gets slower 
the more that goes onto the h/drive the slower it gets
from your post you cannot tell if the m/b supports 2x1g or a total of 1g


----------



## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

dai some motherboards like mine ( i have one with ati xpress 200 don't let you change the memorey in bios) but the hard drive thing needs to be taken it serious consideration what % of you hard drive is used and have you run disc clean up?


----------



## azauk (Apr 28, 2007)

1 g0t 0wn3d said:


> dai some motherboards like mine ( i have one with ati xpress 200 don't let you change the memorey in bios) but the hard drive thing needs to be taken it serious consideration what % of you hard drive is used and have you run disc clean up?


yeah my bios does not have a memory option, i currently am using 37.9gb of my 100gb (toshiba 100GAX) and run defrag and disk cleanup regularly.

i am allso downloading the display driver from the link above.

thanks for the help so far guys

if the ram cannot be saved i will post a link to some ram i have my eye on and ask if it is compatible...


----------



## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

ok =)


----------



## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Hi, and welcome!

Laptops usually have this option even if there is dedicated video RAM, such as in the case of my laptop. I can select 128 MB (96 MB shared), 64 MB (32 MB shared), or 32 MB (no shared RAM).

This is probably similar on your laptop. The Xpress 200M often has dedicated video RAM running at 400 MHz. It is usually 64 MB. In this case, set the amount of video RAM to 64 MB, and it won't use any shared RAM.

Keep in mind, though, that if you will be gaming, you will want to put more video RAM on. Since Vista requires a lot of memory, you should only use more shared RAM if you want to upgrade your physical RAM.


----------



## azauk (Apr 28, 2007)

Thanks theMatt will give it a go...

not sure exactly how to do it but al find out am sureray:


----------



## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

The BIOS isn't that large, so it is usually pretty easy to find your way around. You just have to look at the keyboard instructions so you know how to navigate around.

When you see the Advent logo, it will say 'Press [key] to enter setup'. Press the key it says to enter the BIOS.


----------

