say@syedmuhammad

The amount of system memory has changed

Yesterday when I bought the BenQ E2200 HD, I also bought two sticks of 2GB DDR2 SO-DIMM. Got my trusty precision screwdrivers, I upgraded both the DIMM A and DIMM B of my Inspiron 640m. DIMM B is quite straightforward, but DIMM A needed a little bit more work. See here for more info.

Anyway when I first booted up with the memory, I’ve been greeted with the message

The amount of system memory has changed.

Well there are other messages such as this can occur when you upgraded your memory (duh!) and please reseat your memory.

OK, fine then what?

That message fail to include “Please Enter F1 To Continue Anyway”.

I hit F1 because I’m a total geek. For the average user, I don’t think they will hit F1. Well the average user won’t be bother upgrading their ram anyway. After I hit F1, it will boot up Windows.

Anyway I am using the i945GM chipset, so the total addressable memory is 3.3GB RAM, although mine is 4GB. Windows Vista SP1 reports as 4GB when you right click My Computer->Properties because it can detect the two 2GB sticks. But if you look in the Peformance tab in task manager, you will see the real total physical memory available to the operating system.

Meh, at least it’s dual channel.

BenQ E2200HD

Finally after way too many years of waiting, I have put down my 17″ CRT to retire. Let me tell you a little bit of history of the monitor that I used.

< 1994: I dunno how small the CRT monitor must be, but it worked well for my DOS games. But to tell you the truth, the brightness was so low, playing games that does not have gamma settings will be dark as the night (TIE Fighter!)

1995 - 1999: Comes with an ACER desktop, works well with anything. Again, can't remember the inch of the CRT. There's another monitor in late 1999, again, not worth mentioning.

2000 - 2006: My first high end monitor: LG Flatron 775FT. A very good monitor, but thick as hell. But after playing it with a program called something powerstrip, screwed the brightness of the monitor. Permanently. Oh well it still works.

2007 - 2008: The LG Flatron died of old age. Bought a second hand monitor (17" CRT) just for the purpose of having a monitor. Considering a Flat LCD, but still expensive compare to what I want.

And now for the new year of 2009:

Bought a BenQ E2200 HD. 22" LCD Widescreen. Native res: 1920 X 1080. They market the monitor as Full HD. Funny really. Because you lose more screen estate than a 1920 X 1200. You should check the product minisite.
But hey, its cheap! Wait to see how long this baby can last. Anyway it’s backed by three years warranty. I bought this monitor rather than a 22″ 1680 X 1050 so that my HD4850 CrossFire can sweat a bit. I don’t mind about the height resolution (1080) as even at the office i use a 1280 X 1024. I don’t need the 1200 … yet.

Tags: monitor