OT Wrong advertised specifications

Terry said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

A free Costco membership.

S.

"Terry" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

Perhaps a dunce cap for having shopped at and trusted Wal-Mart???

"Terry" wrote

Quoted message said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

LOL. I love hearing stories like this.

Tell the cheap [censored], to buy somewhere reputable.

Why would you expect a defective PC to be treated differently than any other
defective product?

"Terry" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

Terry said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

Walmart customer service is likely wrong. Depending on which system function
is doing the reporting, she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with
256K taken up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig - 256K =
768K.

HeyBub said:

Depending on which system function is doing the reporting,
she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with 256K taken
up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig -
256K = 768K.

Are you sure about your arithmetic there?

Steve

HeyBub said:

Terry said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

Quoted message said:

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

Quoted message said:

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

Walmart customer service is likely wrong. Depending on which system function
is doing the reporting, she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with
256K taken up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig - 256K =
768K.

She went to Acer's web site and it turns out that it is true that 256k
is being used for video.

They are just padding the numbers. It is a good thing she found this
information before she packed it up and took it back for nothing.

I guess not buying at Walmart is good advice.

"Terry" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

A great many video cards borrow from main RAM. It is quite possible the
system has 1 GB and the video adapter is using 256 MB of it. I doubt a
Wal-Mart would even know this. Where is the system reporting the memory?
Is it in the BIOS or in Windows? Look in the BIOS for the memory
configuration. Most BIOSs will let you modify the RAM allotted to the video
card. If you don't need it, lower the number to 128 or 64MB.

Acer is no better or worse than anything Dell or Gateway puts out at the
price. Acer laptops are a pretty good value, a lot of features for a low
price. Do buy the extended warranty, however. it is cheap but very good
protection.

Paul

"Steve Pope" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

HeyBub said:

Depending on which system function is doing the reporting,
she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with 256K taken
up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig -
256K = 768K.

Are you sure about your arithmetic there?

1024 - 256 = 768. 1 GB = 1024 megabytes.

Paul

Steve Pope said:

HeyBub said:

Depending on which system function is doing the reporting,
she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with 256K taken
up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig -
256K = 768K.

Are you sure about your arithmetic there?

Steve

not sure what you're trying to imply, but 1024 - 256 = 768, where's the
error?

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

"Steve Pope" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

HeyBub said:

Depending on which system function is doing the reporting,
she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with 256K taken
up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig -
256K = 768K.

Are you sure about your arithmetic there?

Steve

Just needs to mind his K's and M's.

How do you figure that? All things considered, she's got a pretty decent
machine for a great price. It also has a 16X PCIE slot, so, if she wants a
good graphics card, she can pop one in and free up that stick of ram

"Terry" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

HeyBub said:

Terry said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

Quoted message said:

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

Quoted message said:

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

Walmart customer service is likely wrong. Depending on which system
function
is doing the reporting, she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with
256K taken up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig - 256K =
768K.

She went to Acer's web site and it turns out that it is true that 256k
is being used for video.

They are just padding the numbers. It is a good thing she found this
information before she packed it up and took it back for nothing.

I guess not buying at Walmart is good advice.

"Terry" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

HeyBub said:

Terry said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

Quoted message said:

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

Quoted message said:

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

Walmart customer service is likely wrong. Depending on which system

function

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

is doing the reporting, she could very well have 1G of installed RAM

with

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

256K taken up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig - 256K =
768K.

She went to Acer's web site and it turns out that it is true that 256k
is being used for video.

They are just padding the numbers. It is a good thing she found this
information before she packed it up and took it back for nothing.

I guess not buying at Walmart is good advice.

They aren't padding the numbers at all. The system has 1 GB of RAM. Anyone
buying a computer should do a little research and check on Google for a
review, first. All it takes is a little legwork. But it is not false
advertising at all. Dedicated video RAM is slower than DDR2 RAM as it uses
the restricted PCI bus speed so using the systems DDR RAM is actually better
if you are into graphics applications as it runs at the CPU's bus speed.
It's also cheaper.

Paul

"HeyBub" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Terry said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

Walmart customer service is likely wrong. Depending on which system

function

Quoted message said:

is doing the reporting, she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with
256K taken up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig - 256K =
768K.

It undoubtedly comes with Vista Home. Minimum for that is 2 GB RAM. Vista
alone uses up almost 900MB of system RAM without running any apps.

Paul

Steve Pope said:

HeyBub said:

Depending on which system function is doing the reporting,
she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with 256K taken
up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig -
256K = 768K.

Are you sure about your arithmetic there?

Steve

Whether the math is correct or not (confusing Kb with Mb), I'm glad
somebody here understands that, depending on the hardware, Windows will
sometimes report less RAM than is physically present. The computer was
probably not defective. Don't let that ruin a good Walmart-bash though,
I don't much like the place either.

"Terry" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

HeyBub said:

Terry said:

A friend of mine just bought a new computer at WalMart. The computer
is a complete set with speakers, mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was
advertised with 1G of memory and the system reports that it is 768K.

Quoted message said:

She contacted WalMart and Walmart acknowledges that it is a mistake.
Now she has to unplug everything, pack it up and take it back for a
swap.

Quoted message said:

This is a lot of work. What, if anything, extra should she expect for
her troubles from Walmart or Acer (brand)?

Walmart customer service is likely wrong. Depending on which system
function
is doing the reporting, she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with
256K taken up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig - 256K =
768K.

She went to Acer's web site and it turns out that it is true that 256k
is being used for video.

They are just padding the numbers. It is a good thing she found this
information before she packed it up and took it back for nothing.

I guess not buying at Walmart is good advice.

Download and run the free CPU-Z utility from http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
.. It tells you exactly what processor, FSB, motherboard and RAM (total, type
and speed) you have. Then you can match the advertised specs against what is
actually in the computer.

Paul M. Cook said:

"Steve Pope" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

HeyBub <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Depending on which system function is doing the reporting,
she could very well have 1G of installed RAM with 256K taken
up by the on-board hardware video circuitry. In such case,
Windows reports only the memory available to it, which is !1Gig -
256K = 768K.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Are you sure about your arithmetic there?

Quoted message said:

1024 - 256 = 768. 1 GB = 1024 megabytes.

Now I agree with that version.

Steve

Terry said:

I guess not buying at Walmart is good advice.

I'd be willing to bet that most computers you'd find at Circuit
City or Best Buy have the exact same issue (I am surprised at
some higher-end spec computers that use integrated video cards).
I think the better advice is having a clue what you're looking
at (and not posting computer related questions in off-topic
newsgroups -- if you'd posted it in a computer-related newsgroup
to begin with the first or second answer would likely have been
correct). They also would have told you that since computer
memory is never sold in 256mb increments anymore, having a
machine with 768mb is nearly impossible.

Bill

Paul M. Cook said:

It undoubtedly comes with Vista Home. Minimum for that is 2 GB RAM. Vista
alone uses up almost 900MB of system RAM without running any apps.

Paul

What??? Minimum for Vista Home Basic is 512mb. Now, maybe the
minimum to run more than one or two apps at a time is more but
surely not 2gb for Home Basic.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx

Bill