I have an old computer with 1GB being used by hardware

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  1. Posts : 22
    Windows 10
       #1

    I have an old computer with 1GB being used by hardware


    Greetings guys.

    I have some parent which have a 2007 PC with Win10, with a processor AMD 2.11 GHZ Dual Core with 4GB RAM DDR2. I was just looking task manager and it says just have 3GB, 1GB reserved for hardwware (haven't done any previous tweak to RAM by the way). Is there some way to use all 4GB instead of 3GB? Unfortunately isn't as simple as switching motherboard or adding more RAM, because the technology used is really OLD with AM2 and DDR2 RAM. This could help a little bit better in performance. Thanks as always for any of your advices.
    Thanks.

    EDIT:
    x86 system, 4GBs RAM.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 15,622
    19043.1237
       #2

    32 or 64 Windows 10? If it is x86 and not x64 you will not be able to use the full 4GB or ram.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 22
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #3

    dmholt57 said:
    32 or 64 Windows 10? If it is x86 and not x64 you will not be able to use the full 4GB or ram.
    My bad good sir. x86 system, 4GBs DDR2 667MHz.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 15,622
    19043.1237
       #4

    Part of it is used by the system for various, graphics for one, so most x86 machines report same as yours 3GB. Look in the Resource Monitor under Computer Management, Memory, Performance. You can see how there is reserved memory and standby memory.
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  5. Posts : 31,630
    10 Home x64 (22H2) (10 Pro on 2nd pc)
       #5

    pasildan said:
    x86 system, 4GBs RAM.
    A 32-bit system has a maximum 4GB address space. This has to accommodate all addressable memory, including the video RAM (if used). Look at Memory in Task Manager on the Performance tab. Near the bottom it says 'Hardware reserved:' followed by an amount of memory. This will be the address space being used for you video memory, the rest is available for addressing your installed RAM.

    The only way to access all 4GB of the installed RAM would be to go for 64-bit Windows 10. Unfortunately you cannot upgrade a 32-bit system to 64-bits, it would have to be a clean install.
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  6. Posts : 22
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #6

    Bree said:
    A 32-bit system has a maximum 4GB address space. This has to accommodate all addressable memory, including the video RAM (if used). Look at Memory in Task Manager on the Performance tab. Near the bottom it says 'Hardware reserved:' followed by an amount of memory. This will be the address space being used for you video memory, the rest is available for addressing your installed RAM.

    The only way to access all 4GB of the installed RAM would be to go for 64-bit Windows 10. Unfortunately you cannot upgrade a 32-bit system to 64-bits, it would have to be a clean install.
    Makes sense. But in that way doing a newer clean installation wouldn't be counter productive in the same time? I mean from what I know, 4gb would be too low RAM for a x64 system considering too just have 677mhz modules for each one of them. Would be that worth to get the extra +1GB being used right now considering 64 bits OS requires +1GB RAM as requirement too?
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  7. Posts : 31,630
    10 Home x64 (22H2) (10 Pro on 2nd pc)
       #7

    Minimum requirements are surprisingly modest.
    Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC
    RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wind...specifications

    My main system is running x64 on 2.10GHz/4GB RAM with no problem, it is 1333MHz DDR3 though, which helps. In fact it will run quite happily with no swapfile, so memory as such isn't an issue. Maybe it would be for a heavy gamer, but for browsing and running Office apps 4GB is more than sufficient in my experience.

    On the whole though, I'd stick a 32-bit system for this particular PC, particularly with its slower memory.

    Physical RAM should not be an issue, you don't really need to worry about your 'unaddressable' 1GB. My x86 test machine (System Two in the specs below) ran on just 1GB until very recently. Now been upgraded to 4GB, but it has only 2.9GB useable RAM. Before the upgrade it would issue 'memory low' warnings when I tried to run without a swapfile, now it doesn't, even when running multiple Office apps.

    NB: I'm not recommending running with no swapfile, it's just something I do for test purposes :)
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  8. Posts : 31,630
    10 Home x64 (22H2) (10 Pro on 2nd pc)
       #8

    BTW, An x64 system has a huge address space. It would be able to address all of the 4GB RAM, then use higher addresses for the video RAM. On my x64/4GB system the 'Hardware reserved' figure is just 52.1MB.
      My Computers


  9. Posts : 22
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #9

    Bree said:
    Minimum requirements are surprisingly modest.
    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wind...specifications

    My main system is running x64 on 2.10GHz/4GB RAM with no problem, it is 1333MHz DDR3 though, which helps. In fact it will run quite happily with no swapfile, so memory as such isn't an issue. Maybe it would be for a heavy gamer, but for browsing and running Office apps 4GB is more than sufficient in my experience.

    On the whole though, I'd stick a 32-bit system for this particular PC, particularly with its slower memory.

    Physical RAM should not be an issue, you don't really need to worry about your 'unaddressable' 1GB. My x86 test machine (System Two in the specs below) ran on just 1GB until very recently. Now been upgraded to 4GB, but it has only 2.9GB useable RAM. Before the upgrade it would issue 'memory low' warnings when I tried to run without a swapfile, now it doesn't, even when running multiple Office apps.

    NB: I'm not recommending running with no swapfile, it's just something I do for test purposes :)
    Unfortunately the computer have 2.11 GHz Dual core AM2, I have been testing it a couple of times however seems getting heavily bottlenecked (if that's the correct term) by no more than a single video on desktop or even a facebook video (which takes a delay of like 10 seconds if remembering correctly). So this is why I was wondering if could fix this 1GB hardware reserved, so would increase a little bit the performance. The problem with that very old technology is that if would ever be able to give a 2gb module instead of one with 1GB , then wouldn't change that much since that cheap motherboard (from that times) accepts no more than 833mhz if I remember correctly. Thanks for all your info by the way.
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  10. Posts : 31,630
    10 Home x64 (22H2) (10 Pro on 2nd pc)
       #10

    I don't think that the memory is the 'bottlekneck', rather the processor.

    I'm not sure which one you have, but there are only a few AMDs it could be for an AM2 socket. I've chosen the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ for comparison. At 1040 its PassMark benchmarks are lower than either of my processors. The x64/4GB machine I use most (and have no 'speed' issues with) ranks at 1711. My x86/4GB test machine feels is a little sluggish, but useable at 1174. Comparisons here...

    PassMark - CPU Performance Comparison
      My Computers


 

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