Why does it say available memory is 614 mb when there is 1024 mb in the computer?

Answer 1

Any program running on your computer requires an amount of memory to function. The amount can vary depending on the software running and it's intended purpose. You operating system is a software program or more accurately, a collection of programs. All of the processes and tasks it performs require memory. This is why 410Mb of memory is un available; it's already in use by processes running on the computer. When the memory you have is all used up, then windows uses something called "virtual memory" which is basically one or more temporary files on your hardisk (also known as swap files). When there is no memory available, windows will use virtual memory instead (where possible). Writing and reading data with a hard disk is much slower than using memory. This is one major reason why increasing memory size (reducing the need to use virtual memory) improves the overall performance of a computer.