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Memory Access Problems

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by jay_spain

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I am working on a friends dv5000 notebook. She was complaining that suddenly it was very very slow. I check her system hardware and in windows it said that she only had 256mb of RAM. I told her she needed more memory and she bought a 1gb chip. When I went to install the chip I noticed she had two memory chips already installed and both were 512mb. I replaced one of the chips with the 1gb and powered into system setup to see if the system recognized the memory. It shows 1.5gb of memory but when I booted into Windows XP SP2 it only shows 256mb of memory. I then removed the 512 chip and left the 1gb memory in and again it only shows 256mb of memory when booted into Windows. I have flashed BIOS to current version to see if that helps but no luck there either. Anyone have an idea why this is happening?
Thanks Jerry

5 replies

by frantic9k

Most notebooks share the memory with the video card. Go in to the Bios and see how much memory is set to be shared with the video card.

It is some what unlikely that this is your issue so I am doing some further brain storming to see what I can figure out.

Also is this Windows XP home or Professional?
Some research I have done so far shows that this problem is being seen on PCs that had windows xp home and were then upgraded to xp professional.

Also check the task manager and in the bottom right hand corner it should show the commit Charge. if the second number shows something like 1024M Then even though system information is not showing correctly the PC is still utilizing the correct amount of memory.

If this is Windows XP Home, boot up in safe mode and log in as Administrator and see what windows xp shows for Ram. if it is showing 1 gig then It is either a profile issue or hardware/programs that are borrowing the ram and using it as its own making windows think you only have 256

These next few tips may not fix the problem but could help with PC performance:

Another thing to try is go to Windows explorer and navigate to the C:\winnt\prefetch folder and delete everything in there to make sure there is no corrupt files that can effect system and program startup. Then go to c:\winnt\temp and do the same thing there. There might be a couple of files in the temp directory that will not let you delete, if so just ignore those files. Reboot.

Also go to ccleaner.com and download the free ccleaner program (beware make sure to uncheck the yahoo toolbar install) nce you run the program, ignore the cleaner and go to the registry checker. Let it scan the registry and fix all problems, when prompted to make a back up click yes. Run this scan about 3 or four times because even after you fix the problems it may still find a few other issues. Reboot

Go to Start, click run and type msconfig.
Click on the SYSTEM.INI tab. Click on the + next to [386Enh]. Now click on [386Enh] and this should highlight it. Over on the right hand side click on the new button then type LocalLoadHigh=1 and now press enter. Now click the new button again and this time type DMABufferSize=64 and press enter. Now click on the services tab and look for Indexing Service. Uncheck Indexing Service, click ok and then restart your PC.

I would also check for spyware (if you haven't already) to make sure that isn't causing PC slowness.

Hopefully this information will help, and even if it doesn't help fix the 256 issue atleast be ale to speed the users PC back up.

by jay_spain

Thanks for getting back to me. After looking into her problems further I can see she has much more problems than the memory. Her batterie does not take any charge, in fact the light to show charging is not even lit up. Also her DVD drive does not work. There is power to it, but it does not show up in the Setup. It does in explorer but I can't read anything from the drive and can not boot from the drive. I am thinking that she might have used the laptop a lot sitting on a stool and probably not enough ventalation for the system. This might have caused overheating. I am no expert but maybe this caused the problems?? If this is the case then is she just out of luck? Any thoughts?
I will try the suggestions you gave to see if I can get something for her. I was asked to check the system info in Start>Programs>accessories>system tools>system imfo> it shows all of the 1gb of memory but only 32.56mb of memory available.
thanks
Jerry

by frantic9k

Overheating could be a cause, it could also come down to the age of the laptop (not sure how old it may be). I have seen alot of issues with DVD drives where it loses its driver and pulls an incorrect one. see if it will let you reinstall the driver in device manager.

Laptop Batteries are notorious for not keeping charge and not charging properly. This is commonly due to inproper use, age, or a defect.

I am not sure what the costs are like in Spain but here in the US it would almost be cheaper to buy a new laptop then to try and fix all the problems. If it was my personal laptop I would try to fix it simply because I never buy the low end laptops. I normally spend around $1000 minimum but that is because #1 am a geek and #2 I run some very demanding software and usually require specs that the lower end laptops do not meet.

The problem wth internal laptop parts is that they are custom made for the model of laptop so you typicaly have to get a certian part and do not have many options to shop around for price. I would do price checks on a dvd drive and battery for her laptop. Make sure you can reurn them if she decides to buy them and then test the parts out. if simply replacing them fixes the issue then you are done, if not then time for a new laptop.

Now back to the memory issue. Most reported cases on the internet are just bugs in the display. Defintely clean the PC out and see how that works.

by jay_spain

Frantic9k
Yes that is what I have told her. She needs to keep a lookout for a new laptop. It is only 3 years old and she did tell me that she sent it in once because she blocked the vent holes and overheated it. HP told her they replaced the motherboard, but I am sure because of that she is having these problems. Wish she would have told me all this before I wasted so much time on this. Thanks again for your help.
Jay

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