Powerbook G4 Memtest shows less memory

[belzrebuth]

Hi all,
I just installed 2x1GB Hynix ram to my old Powerbook G4 17" low res running 10.5.8 and in "About this Mac" the ram is recognised fine.
Just to be sure though I run memtest (2 passes ,no errors) but I'm getting like 153xx MB of total memory (don't remember the exact number).
My graphics card has its own memory (128) so I don't think there's shared memory between the two.
Right now I'm logged into Single User mode and I'm testing one of the two modules.It's on the 6th pass and everything seems ok,no errors other than it's recognised as 947MB.
Is this normal?Shouldn't be 1024MB?
I want to make sure that my RAM isn't faulty because I think I can still return it.
Thanks!

edit:I just read that when running memtest when OSX is booted it actually shows less memory so that shouldn't be a problem but I'm still worried about the 947 instead of 1024..

 

[Intell]

That's normal. Mac OS X needs memory to work the system, even in single user mode. The rest is then split on an even number that memtest can work with.

 

[belzrebuth]

Nice.Okay then.
I'm just finishing testing my ram modules one after another for 10 passes each in Single user mode just to be sure.(I get 947mb out of the 1024)
Thing is that I didn't actually experience any perfomance boost when I installed the 2gigs and used the laptop for a while.That's what made me curious in the first place.
Since I doubled the ram I was expecting a lot better perfomance overall but I don't think that that's the case here.
I was wondering if I should upgrade the HD but I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle since I started using my Powerbook after quite a long time just for the heck of it.
I'm also not sure if there's anything I could besides the all-over-the-net perfomance "tricks".
I have a Tiger Install disk somewhere so I could try installing 10.4 just to compare.
Any additional suggestions are more than welcome!

 

[Intell]

Here's a lovely thread that has some tips in it: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1723868/

 

[belzrebuth]

Wow!Thanks🙂That should really do it on the Leopard part.Really appreciate it!
What about the Tiger vs Leopard on a G4 ,in general?
I've always considered that the OS and apps that run the best on a system are the ones that are of similar age.
I've installed Leopard pretty quickly on my G4 so i don't remember how it was with Tiger.It's been a long time..
Sorry for my too many questions.!