Comments on: Upgrading your HP Pavilion dv9260 from 2GB of RAM to 4GB

By: dotlizard

dotlizard — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:53:12 +0000

Oh, and if you haven’t checked out the Lenovo outlet, do. Y710 or Y730’s for awesome deals. Picked up a very, very nicely spec’d 17″ gaming rig for my kid for his bday for under six hundred, if you want a near-top of the line screaming-fast model will still run well under $2K. good & sturdy too, my kid games like crazy and it keeps up with him. And, his Lenovo may only be 32bit OS, but, it sees all four of its gigs of memory

By: dotlizard

dotlizard — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:42:59 +0000

I am running Win7 for my primary OS, and have gone through the running services thoroughly and shut down resource hogs of limited usefulness (windows media center, i’m looking at you). Along with the 3 gigs of RAM and the new screen and lid I got from sending it in due to the hinge defect, it’s in pretty good shape, and runs SO MUCH BETTER than it did under Vista. Like, no comparison so much better. It boots inside of a minute and I can plug in an extra monitor and go to town multitasking.

Upgrading to 7200rpm hard drive will also make things move a little quicker, pick up a 320gb for like, $70 or 80 on Amazon, put your old 120GB in an enclosure — faster computer *and* spare portable hard drive! It’s win-win.

Not saying it still doesn’t have its sucky moments, but, there are ways to make it minimally sucky. And with things like buying a new system, a little patience is a lot better than rushing and being sorry (*ahem* dv9260, rush decision made in emergency, sigh).

By: ttmyt

ttmyt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:50:43 +0000

Can the Quanta 30DB v66.37 be firmware upgraded or modified or are we crap out of luck and stuck with what we bought….? the reason i want to know all this is that this computer sucks… seriously.. i bought this new for like 2500-3000 and it was a replacement for another computer and it is just horrible…. my options are… wait till winter… upgrade to windows 7, throw in 2 SSD of 120GB each or better and keep it… OR just wait it out till xmas or just after and get a new computer… maybe an alienware so i know i can do it all!

By: Wyatt LeCadre

Wyatt LeCadre — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:40:26 +0000

@ttmyt Most laptops use shared memory. Unfortunately I don’t know of a way to reclaim it but I have never attempted to do so either. I will look into it further. Also keep in mind that desktop PCs are configured differently from laptops therefore the BIOS is usually very restrictive. I have also built PCs before so I understand your frustration.

By: Wyatt LeCadre

Wyatt LeCadre — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:29:50 +0000

@dotlizard You are correct. The dv9260’s mobo (Quanta 30DB v66.37) can not access the full 4GB of RAM even though the BIOS does. Apologies for not addressing this before. Thanks.

By: Ttmyt

Ttmyt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:40:35 +0000

So let’s approach is another way. I built laptops and computers for years. I specifically hate mainstream products for this reason and I’ll most likely neverbuy oneagain. With that said, one idea I had was to see if pheonix made a bios for this. Computer that didn’t have all th options hidden by hp. I have version D now. After talkingto a few others I found out that everyone with this issue, just just this laptop or hp, was alble to fix this by adjustng the shared memory in the bios. We don’t seem to have that option, but if someoene knows if pheniox has an unrestricted bios we can use it may just fix this issue.

Thoughts? Solutions? Anyne know if this can be done?

By: dotlizard

dotlizard — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:00:37 +0000

I did the same upgrade as described here, including all the driver-updating and bios-flashing, and I have the exact same thing – system tells me it sees 4GB but only can use 3GB. I run 64bit Windows 7 *and* Vista ultimate (one on each hard drive) and it’s the same story on both.

I researched this in a number of forums, and it is not Windows fault it is the motherboard. A hardware limit in what amount of memory the dv9260 can use, even if it can see all four.

And, with Windows 7’s fancy new system monitoring tools, I can tell you without hesitation that the system is only using 3GB, it reports its usage in great detail (and is an awesome tool for diagnosing and optimizing one’s system to run better, but I digress).

Since the 3GB limit is hardware-based, there’s no way to reclaim the other GB.

By: Ttmyt

Ttmyt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:40:12 +0000

I have 4gb installed. Bios says 4gb. When vista x64 loads it says 4gb but it says 3gb available and 1gb shared to video card. So now my video card displays having 1500mb of memory. I want that extra 1gb back for system memory. I don’t need 1.5gb for video. How do I reclaim that memory or limit the shared video memory. There are no settings in bois or windows or nvidea control panel. I just wsnt that memory back. Are you not having the same issue?

By: Wyatt LeCadre

Wyatt LeCadre — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:31:11 +0000

I’m a little confused about your post Adrian. Please explain further. Here or shot me an email.

By: ttmyt

ttmyt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:20:14 +0000

I have done this… everything is great… BUT it says that my memory card is using 1.5GB… i know the card came with 256mb SO… how do i get the other 1GB released? there are no options in the bios and i dont need my memory card to have 1.5GB of memory… i need that extra memory because i run photoshop and a slew of other programs at once!

please advise!

adrian