Hi I'm doing some maintenance on a laptop for a friend. The laptop only has 2GB memory (which is terrible) and then the APU uses another 512MB permanently for the GPU. Is there a way to dedicate less memory? The laptop is only going to be used for MS Word and browsing - really doesn't need so much memory for graphics - would rather have the system have more memory available. I checked the BIOS and found no such setting.
Amount of system memory given to intel/AMD iGPU is set up in bios. Since it is laptop, this option is often locked out. You can try adequate bios with unlocked advanced menus. But for laptop, it is often choice between worse performance and flash which may permanently brick device.
2GB is today pretty common for tablets with clip on keyboards. But I would not tell anyone to get one. I personally got tablet with 4GB ram and it is usable. 2GB is just fine for linux.
OP, don't bother searching for unlocked BIOS for that laptop so that you could change an amount of RAM dedicated to the graphic in APU: buy cheap used 1GB DDR3 or 2GB DDR3 SO-DIMM and close the day. Some year and half ago I had Acer Aspire E1-521-12202G50Mnks with AMD E1-1200 APU (Dual-Core 1.4GHz, Radeon HD 7310 inside APU). It was cheap and came with just 2GB DDR3, I've added another 1GB DDR3 (bought it used, iirc for 2.5€) for total 3GB DDR3, not sure but think in lappy's BIOS I could change amount of RAM used by Radeon HD 7310 in APU: I've chosen 512MB. Installed Win8.1 Pro 32bit and used it for web browsing, Youtube, Skype, movies... and it did a good job for those purposes. Stock HDD was WD Blue 500GB 5400rpm, had one Hitachi 500GB 7200rpm laying around unused so I've throw it in instead of WD 5400rpm and that Hitachi 7200rpm did a great job regarding speed: lappy was noticeably faster, from zero to fully loaded Win8.1 Pro 32bit for less than 15 sec... Sold it few months ago, tablet is my primary portable device for a long time for internet so I don't have use for laptop anymore...