Vista RAM Usage Question

[zurch1818]

Yesterday I was able to steal two gigs of memory off my brother's old computer after he built a new desktop. He planned on putting it into his new system but found out that DDR2 RAM is obsolete. Score for me. Anyways, I installed it on my computer and it looks like it worked as it now lists 8GB of ram in the properties over where it used to say 6GB. However, when I go into the task manager, I see that the Total Available memory (8180MB) does not equal the Cached memory (6232MB) plus free memory (57MB). This may be a stupid question, but shouldn't TAM=CM+FM? Or is this an issue with Vista where it isn't very memory efficient? I know in order for me to get up to 8GB of ram, I had to take out the two 1GB sticks out to make room for the two 2GB sticks, so I know at least one of them has to be working.

[giffted1]

I could be mistaken, but I think memory in use comes into the equation as well. Total Memory = Cached Memory + Free Memory + Memory In Use. In Windows 7, the memory in use is shown in a graph on the screen.

[1992casey]

You have to look in another place to see how much memory is installed and recognized. Click the Start button, right-click on Computer, and choose Properties.

 

Find out how much RAM your computer has

 

I'm not up on the nitty-gritty of exactly how Windows reports its memory usage, but as giffted1 says, memory actively being used doesn't appear to be directly accounted for by the Task Manager.

 

Behind the Windows 7 memory usage scaremongering

[zurch1818]

Thanks for the help. I see that if I add the memory that I am currently using to the equation (2.55GB), it adds up to more than 8GB. It must be double counting something in the cached memory....a grey area if you will.

[1992casey]

A gigabyte could be reported as either 1000 megabytes or as 1024 megabytes. Is it possible that that's coming into play?

[zurch1818]

I thought about that...but I don't think the difference in 24 mb per gig of ram is significant enough to create the 1gb "missing" memory. I have noticed that it is running faster than it was before, so whatever I did must have worked. Why can't it be more black and white?

[Baldkin]

If you're looking at task manager, there are 5 numbers:

 

Memory (I believe this is listed in green, just above the bottom tables) - The amount of memory your system is currently using --- I am pretty sure this is the number you are not adding into the equation.

Total -- Total RAM on your system

Available -- How much RAM is available on your system (Total - Memory)

Cache -- Memory your system is using to help speed up your applications but can be freed at any time.

Free -- The amount of Memory your system is currently not using.

 

 

So: Total= Memory + Cache + Free

and Available = Cache + Free

 

*multiple edits because I kept screwing up*

[zurch1818]

http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk3/weshelmsfan/RAM.jpg

 

If anyone is curious...here is a screenshot from the task manager. I'm still very confused but I think I am just going to move on to acceptance.

 

Edit: It might be something with the Kernel Memory, but I have no idea what that is.

[Baldkin]

Yeah, that's just weird.

 

Your system seems to be using 9 gigs of RAM, not 8.

(2.85 GB + 6.47GB)