Memory and HDD doesn't show exact size...

[netbreaker]

Hi guys,

I just installed new 40GB of HDD and 128MB SDRAM into my friend's PC. During the boot-up process, it only shows as 127MB of memory... and when I checked the HDD it shows as 38 or 39GB! I encounterd this many times even in my own PC. I just want to know why is it like that?

Thanks for any info.

[Krimlin]

beats me, I dont really care. Ive got three sticks of 128 Ram and its says i have 393MB when 128 * 3 = ..*opens calc* 384. I guess its just not an exact science.

[locorev]

You should probably check out the definitions for "Kilo" and "Mega". While they mean "thousand" and "million" respectively, a kilobyte is defined as 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes. Some measure a "Megabyte" as 1 million and some measure as 1000 Kilkobytes which is a bit different. Grab your calculator and figure it with the 1024 versus 1000 byte definitions and you'll see where the difference lies.
L

[wildred]

I have noticed also, that with memory, not hard drive space, if you have an onboard video card, it can use that XX meg and windows shows it as XX less then what it should be.

[fl34bit3]

No hard drive ever is what it says it is. As Locorev said there is a difference between the real value of a Meg and what the HDD developers believe it to be.

PeacE
-BoB

[The3ntropy]

Hard disk drives are what they say, giga = billion, hard drives have so many billions of bytes, what all of you windows worshippers don't realize though, is that there is also a file system that needs to be integrated onto that hard disk drive, and it is also easier for it to just use a base of 2, 2^10=1024. Windows replaces kilo with 1024 bytes, mega with 1024 kilobytes, and giga with 1024 megabytes. So 1 windows gigabyte actually equals 1,073,741,824 bytes, or 8,589,934,592 bits. There is nothing wrong with the hard disk drives, only something wrong with windows.

[Cybr1d]

both of them are fine, as the3 said. if the HD says anything close to 40 such as 39 or 38, that means that its a 40 GIG hard drive but because that whole 1024 it will not show exactly 40 gig. same thing for ram. *1am and still awake, sorry if i dont make much sense *

[nihil]

I agree with what the other guys have said regarding the 1024/1000 issue. Also, manufacturers use "notional" values for HDDs...they round UP to the next highest number.

It's a bit like a car engine which is always a few cubic centimeters less than the Manufacturer's rating.

As for the RAM...this is a good one, as a small amount of missing memory used to be indicative of a TSR type virus.............you tend not to see that sort of virus these days.............

What I believe is that the system/bios needs a certain amount of RAM, and grabs it (typically 1Mb). Some bioses are more "honest" than others and admit to this, only telling your system what is available, rather than what is there.

I do not think that you have anything to worry about.

Cheers

[SirDice]

Harddisk manufacturers use the official SI standard. This dictates that K, M and G are multiples of 1000. This is called decimal conversion. Your computer uses a binary conversion and as such uses multiples of 1024.

As for the RAM it could be that you've turned on BIOS/Video caching in the BIOS. What this does is copy your BIOS and/or your Video BIOS to RAM before executing it. This was done to speed up BIOS access but it's entirely unneccesary these days so you can turn this off in your BIOS without any problems and/or noticeble speed changes.

[mohaughn]

For the video card issue. It is also possible to have a winvideo card where the video card itself has no memory and must use the system memory instead. Winmodems work the same way..

and as far as windows being messed up because it sees a k as 1024.. that isn't windows... that is pretty much standard on all systems.