This is a hot topic and you can search the forum for more details.  Essentially in 32bit Vista (and XP I believe), some of your 4 GB of RAM is reserved for such things as PCIe cards and the like and can't be used for applications.  Typically Vista can recognize between 3 and 3.5 GB of useable RAM depending upon your peripherals.  The only solution is to get 64bit Vista.  I added 2 GB to a 2GB system and ended up with 3.325 GB of application addressable RAM.  It is sad that that last GB of RAM your buy from Dell at very high price turns out of be something of a waste of money.

Hi

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=240AC3F3-2B60-4B70-B709-06B2BC5B1336&displaylang=en

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=vista&thread.id=12658

From Chris

My computer
Dell Dimension 1100
Microsoft Windows XP Home SP 2
512 MB of Ram
Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 256MB
Intel Celeron CPU 2.53GHz
HDD WDC WD800BB-75JCO 80GB C:
HDD Samsung SV2042H 20GB F:
TSSTcorp CDRWDVD TS-H492C D:
LITE-ON DVDRW LDW-851S E:
Linksys wireless-G WUSB54GS With SpeedBooster
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4

my security software
VCOM SystemSuite 7 Professional
Windows Defender

This has been discussed on the forum many of times. Do a search and you'll find plenty of results.

 

Inspiron 1501

MK36 AMD Turion

2 GB RAM

ATI 200MSeries

this isn't fair, i paid for 4gigs of ram and i cant have access to it all, if i was told this before i would have gotten vista ultimate, how do i make a complaint and get them to send me ultimate

 

It doen't matter what edition of Vista you have it depends on what bit CPU you have.

x86 (32bit)= 2.5GB-3.2GB

x64 (64bit)=4.0GB

If you was to get Ultimate you would have to purchase the 64bit to see the whole 4GB's

 

Inspiron 1501

MK36 AMD Turion

2 GB RAM

ATI 200MSeries

 

From the Dell site - "The total amount of available memory will be less than 4GB. The amount less depends on the actual system configuration. To fully utilize 4GB or more of memory requires a 64-bit enabled processor and 64-bit operating system".

 

While rather well hidden, this information is available. The same applies to ANY brand of computer and applies to 32 bit operating systems. So you can complain to Dell if you want to waste your time but it won't do any good. You ordered 4 gigs of RAM, you paid for 4 gigs of RAM and you received 4 gigs of RAM. As for Vista Ultimate, Dell ships only 32 bit operating systems so Ultimate will not see any more RAM than whatever version you have now. If you're actually speaking of the 64 bit version, you'll have to purchase that yourself.