ram is missing

I upgraded my ram to 1 gig of ram and when i go to my computer right click property's it shows up 0.99 gig of ram why is that???? how ever on pc wizard it shows up 1024 of ram So whats the deal??? is windows taking some ram for back up or full time use or something of that nature????

Hi NG1 - I suspect there is nothing wrong, but just a matter of what is considered 1 Gb. The confusion comes from humans being used to the decimal system, while computers work in binary.

In the decimal system, 1K = 1,000

But in the digital world, 1K = 1,024. (2^10)

And sadly, there is no standard in the industry so some companies will use the decimal value and some the binary. Hard drives, for example, use the decimal system because the makes it appear it has more storage space.

This might help explain it: Binary vs. Decimal

Unfortunately, you told us nothing of your computer but I would not be concerned that it says 99 instead of 100 - that's close enough.

is windows taking some ram for back up or full time use or something of that nature????

Since we know nothing of your computer we can't answer for sure, but many PCs and almost all laptops use on-board graphics as opposed to add-in graphics cards. Using on-board is great for economy systems, laptops, and office work horses, but the problem is, on-board graphics does steal a chunk of system RAM for dedicated graphics use. Typically 32Mb, up to 128Mb. Older systems my take 16Mb or even as little as 8Mb. System information tools would report the full amount, but Windows would only see the remaining.