~~ Pass the RAM size limit on notebook?

[pc_boy]

I have a presario F572US and I placed an order for a 2GB stick of corsair memory for it, only to discover a day later that my laptop has 2 memory slots (originally occupied by 2x512MB sticks) that support "up to" 1GB each for a total of 2GB total memory. When i got the RAM today from newegg, i popped it in just to see what happens, and viola, Vista detects every bit of the 2GB. Now i have 2.5GB of RAM (left one of the 512's in there). I checked it with CPUZ, and DXDIAG, and they all show the full 2.5GB.

Is it really true that I'm using the full 2.5, or does it just say that, and actually use less?

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

There may have been a BIOS update that was placed on your laptop to allow for more ram useage that was released after the manual or specs for it was released???

 

[pc_boy]

Not that I am aware of. Got the laptop September 07 and I don't do any BIOS updates. I read about the limit on HP's website a few days ago, as well as may other sites including cnet and others.

 

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

In theory, the total amount of RAM which can be installed on your system (if you have Windows XP 32-bit installed) is 4GB.

While your computer has 2.5GB system memory in total, the Compaq Presario F572US has Nvidia GeForce Go 6150 integrated graphics which shares memory from RAM for use as video memory (Unified Memory Architecture). So effectively, the full 2.5GB of RAM is not available for processes. The amount of RAM allocated to graphics can usually be specified in the BIOS.

 

[pc_boy]

Hello,

In theory, the total amount of RAM which can be installed on your system (if you have Windows XP 32-bit installed) is 4GB.

While your computer has 2.5GB system memory in total, the Compaq Presario F572US has Nvidia GeForce Go 6150 integrated graphics which shares memory from RAM for use as video memory (Unified Memory Architecture). So effectively, the full 2.5GB of RAM is not available for processes. The amount of RAM allocated to graphics can usually be specified in the BIOS.

That's true, the graphics take away 130MB, so it shows up as 2430MB or RAM, instead of 2560 (512+2048), however that is still above the maximum amount that it is supposed to support, and way above the limit per mem slot.

The PC seems to function fine, so I guess it's working.

 

[Kharn]

They might have made a non documented update to the flash memory that is one possible explanation.