Eddo

I understand the way WM5 uses the BIS for storage, kind of like a hard drive in a computer. Therefore the RAM is used for Program Memory ONLY. But that a look at this.

STORAGE :
Total: 90.49MB (I though I had 128mb?)
In Use: 9.44MB
Free: 81.05MB

PROGRAM :
Total: 49.29MB (What happened to 64mb, It use to say 61.4MB in WM2003!?)
In Use: 20.76MB
Free: 28.53 MB

I could care less about the storage since I have a 1 GB SD card. But even with the difference of using base 8 vs 10 to count memory it dosen't account for 37.5MB of Storage in the BIS.

Now for the RAM? What the heck happened to 64MB TOTAL? It use to say 61.4MB in WM2003. Now the total is 49.29MB?

Adrian Knack

I've seen this mentioned in several other threads - possibly WM5 is reporting the RAM incorrectly?

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Eddo

Originally Posted by Adrian Knack

I've seen this mentioned in several other threads - possibly WM5 is reporting the RAM incorrectly?

That is the only think I can really think of. It also seems to reporting the total BIS incorrect too. X51 owners have reported the same problem.

I've searched and read and no one answers the question on why the TOTAL memory and BIS is less. I know WM5 uses them differently, hence resulting in different amounts free and used, but that does NOT account for the TOTALS being different.

Adrian Knack

OK the BIS is easy - It doesn't report the operating system which is present. Under WM2003SE it didn't report the BIS to be 128MB either - only 90something.

RAM I think is a problem. Otherwise it may be reporting it in the same way and doesn't tell you about the RAM that the OS is present in. Seems resonable to me that it would only talk about program memory not OS memory... but it remains to be seen... if it gets fixed in a later ROM update then iot was a problem... if not... it was a "feature".

Cheers

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Eddo

Thanks Adrian,

Unfortunally, this is the best explaination I think we have now, until dell tells us what is going on.

Just a couple quick points.

Those numbers are right after a Hard Rest and with just WM5 installed. No other programs at all. So what is being stored in the used portion of the BIS.

Second, even if WM5 is excluding the amount used by the OS how come there is still 20.7 MB of RAM used. I do not any programs running at all. This is right after a hard rest.

Adrian Knack

I am guessing but BIS is probably things like theme's etc. which are not part of the OS but come installed with it.

So for the 20MB used... that is tough... my guess would be calander, today screen stuff, activesync etc. The other "missing" 12MB of ram is probably the OS itself. But more likely is that it is a mistake :)

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badbob001

In a late October microsoft wm5 chat, I had asked about this lost ram issue. I'm told that the OS doesn't show the user the ram that the user wouldn't have access to anyway, which would be the stuff used by the OS. I guess the OS uses about 15MB of ram for itself and some cache for running programs faster. As for the remaining 16MB-ish, I assume that is used by Dell installed drivers like the wlan and bluetooth stuff. Is there a tool or registry location so that I can see what drivers are being loaded? I wish there was a safe-mode startup so I can have no extra drivers loaded. There should be. What if I have a device-crashing program set to autostart? Would there be a way to prevent startup programs from running? Or would I need to hard-reset?

SkipFire

You would probably need a hard-rest though from my understanding since all of the storage areas are now non-volatile since it is the chips that used to be the BIS you should not lose any data, just installs and shortcuts and such. I am rather certain that the configuration stuff, Start Menu, Startup folder and all that stuff are still in volatile memory.

zerograviti

Does this post linking to an explanation on mobiletechreview as to why there is only 49 available to the user.

"Windows Mobile 5.0 caches operating system files heavily to improve performance, and uses a significant portion of available RAM. At boot, 49.47 megs of RAM are shown as available, and another 19 megs of that available memory are used by the OS. That means you'll have about 30 megs out of 64 available to run programs. That's certainly adequate even for power users, but it's surprising how much of that 64 megs is used by the device."

Eddo

Originally Posted by zerograviti

Does this post linking to an explanation on mobiletechreview as to why there is only 49 available to the user. "Windows Mobile 5.0 caches operating system files heavily to improve performance, and uses a significant portion of available RAM. At boot, 49.47 megs of RAM are shown as available, and another 19 megs of that available memory are used by the OS. That means you'll have about 30 megs out of 64 available to run programs. That's certainly adequate even for power users, but it's surprising how much of that 64 megs is used by the device."

Wow so WM5 uses 34MB of ram. The 16mb it steals from you (the stuff that dosen't show as available) plus the other 19 megs it uses. So you are left with less memory than with WM2003 eventhough the entire OS and all programs are no longer stored in the RAM.