OT Wrong advertised specifications

[Paul M. Cook]

It will "run" at that size but it won't be useable.

Just try running it with 512 and it will go virtual and drive your performance down to a crawl. A brand new Vista Home system with no apps running typically will demand 860MB of RAM If you only have 512 it will constantly swap to disk and that destroys performance. 2 GB is the practical configuration. Microsoft claimed XP was fine in 128 but you could never do anything with it with that little RAM. An extra gig for that computer is like 50 bucks. Money very well spent.

You'll have to forgive me. I have only been in this business for 24 years and I make a living as a IT consultant.

Paul

[Steve Barker LT]

How 'bout a big mac on the way out?

s

[Bob F]

That is most certainly not true.

Bob

[Paul M. Cook]

256 MB is very common. It's a 512 stick with only one side populated. Not at all hard to manufacture. Very common and some systems still can be bought with that little base memory.

Paul

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Maybe it has 1GB of main memory but the video card maybe sharing the memory taking away 256MB. Look at the spec. of video chip. Cheap PCs are built that way instead of having video memory separate.

[Uncle Monster]

A much better one is Belarc Advisor.

It tells you everything about your computer.

[8~{} Uncle Monster

[Melba's Jammin']

Poor thing.

An apology and the offer of the correct processor with the stated memory for the same price she paid for the first one. Do you think she's entitled to more than that?

[Gunner]

You certainly answered my questions about weaseling credentials

[Bill]

Fine, so they still make it. When was the last time you saw a machine sold with memory in something other than 512mb increments. I just checked all of the desktops being sold at Walmart and they all have 512mb, 1gb or 2gb. I have not seen a machine sold with an odd amount like 768mb in a long time.

Bill

[Bill]

Surprise! She already got it and didn't realize it.

Bill

[Paul M. Cook]

Last week. My neighbor got a HP from Costco. Base RAM was 256MB. I installed an extra gig for him.

Paul

[catalpa]

Thanks for the link. Much more information, but it also has some minor problems. It gives the wrong total for installed memory (it subtracts out the video shared memory), but each slot is specified correctly. And it doesn't bother to read the SPD to specify the rated speed of each RAM module. Very useful for the list of Microsoft hotfixes.

[Vilco]

PCI video cards are long gone, it's years they're all on the north bridge thanks to the AGP port. Moreover:

1) the RAM mounted on video cards is way faster than the system RAM and with a superior bandwidth 2) it is directly connected to the GPU so the GPU-to-video-memory path is shorter, thus quicker 3) a video card using it's own RAM doesn't slow down the whole system as integrated video cards (using system RAM) do

[Shawn Hirn]

Your friend should expect nothing. Wal-Mart didn't get to be the world's largest retailer by giving away things to its customers. Your friend should get what was advertised, but if she expects more than that, she's likely going to be disappointed.

You get what you pay for. Next time, your friend should visit a local mom & pop store to buy a PC and have it built to her specifications or make life really easy on herself and buy an Apple computer. Either way, she would get a lot more compute for her money and better tech support.

[Uncle Monster]

There is another program called Sandra that gives a lot of hardware data. I have huge collection of software and links and one day I'll get around to organizing them all. One day and another day.....

[8~{} Uncle Monster

[Caesar Romano]

On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 01:41:27 GMT, "Paul M. Cook" wrote Re Re: OT Wrong advertised specifications:

Good points Paul. I believe she got a decent machine at a reasonable price.

[Doug Miller]

Bzzzzt! Wrong answer, but thanks for playing.

1G - 256K = 1048320K = 1023.75M

[HeyBub]

If it's this one:

She got a 2.4GHz machine with 160GB SATA drive. For $498.00 (with 17" LCD monitor, keyboard, mouse, DVD drive, VISTA Home Basic, a bunch of crap software, etc.)

Specifications on WalMart's web site include:

"256 MB shared graphics memory"

[HeyBub]

She paid (probably) $498.

You can't even get an Apple iPhone for $498.

[Sam E]

Less confusing than confusing Kb with KB (kilobits with kilobytes).