But why is all the RAM gone?

Started by Hades, July 20, 2016, 07:08:53 PM

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Hades

Remiel, if you ever read this thread, congratulations on being immortalized in one of my subject lines.  I know it's a highlight of your day.


So anyway, on to the actual problem I'm having.   I had to buy a new computer at the first of the month, and it only came with 2 GB of memory.  The store had to order more because they were out of the size of sticks that I needed.   Anyway, they came in today and I put all the sticks in with no problem.   Started the system up, went to the Control Panel and System Properties to check everything out and saw that it did indeed show there was 8 GB of memory installed.  However....it says that only 3 GB is available.  I looked around online, and found the three most common solutions given.  But none of the three apply/worked when I tried them.

1) Having a 32-bit operating system puts a cap of 3 GB in place. But my version of Windows 7 is 64-bit. So that shouldn't be an issue here.

2) I opened msconfig and went into the boot tab and made certain that the "maximum memory" option was disabled, and restarted the system. No effect.

3) Was told to check BIOS settings and look for Memory Remapping. However, I looked through all the options in BIOS and that wasn't available in any menu that I saw, nor were any possible alternative wordings that even had the word "memory" in it. I did see in the system summary that I had 3GB of memory available to the OS, and 5GB available to devices, but I have no idea what that means, and that was shown in system summary so I couldn't scroll down to try and change anything.

So I'm at a loss as to what can be done and would greatly appreciate any suggestions.


Edit:   A screenshot of what it shows when I hit System Properties in the Control Panel.

Screenshot thingie

AmberStarfire

#1
My guess is it might have to do with the combination of the RAM you have.

How much RAM do you have in each of the slots individually?

I found this page to try and explain why it could be a problem:

http://www.howtogeek.com/199070/would-using-unequal-amounts-of-ram-in-each-slot-decrease-performance/

If it's 2GB, 2GB and 4GB, you might have a problem. You're better with 4GB and 4GB.


Hades

I'm using four sticks of 2GB each.   And even when I tried it with just two of the sticks, thinking maybe one was bad even though they were new, it still showed me as having 4GB installed and 3GB available.   If there was just one stick in place, it was 2GB installed/2GB available.  So there's some sort of cap in place that I can't figure out.



Orange Marmalade

How old is that processor you have? It might not fully support it.

The other option may be that it has an onboard video processor rather than a dedicated video card, which could use some - but it shouldn't be using 5GB.

AmberStarfire



Hades

Quote from: Orange Marmalade on July 20, 2016, 08:20:28 PM
How old is that processor you have? It might not fully support it.

The other option may be that it has an onboard video processor rather than a dedicated video card, which could use some - but it shouldn't be using 5GB.

I don't know how old this specific processor is.  I bought it from the local computer place when my old one died, so the processor already came in the tower.

I don't think it has its own  video processor, though I'd have no idea what I was looking at if it did.  I do have a Radeon card installed though, so even if it has one it shouldn't be active.


Quote from: AmberStarfire on July 20, 2016, 08:35:31 PM
If you run dxdiag it might give you some answers.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/how-to-run-a-directx-diagnostic-on-xp/

or System Information (down the end of the web page):

http://www.howtogeek.com/164484/10-useful-system-tools-hidden-in-windows/


I'll give those a try in the morning when I get home from work and see if they show up anything.  Thanks. :-)

Vekseid

Are you using an integrated video card? If so, how much ram is getting dedicated to the card?

Hades

I don't think it's an integrated card.  Again, when it comes to the hardware side of things I'm mostly at the level of:  *Opens casing* Yep, that's alot of wires and shiny things there.  *Closes the casing* Right, what's the number for the repair shop again?

I just know they took the graphics card from my old PC (since the card was less than a year old) and swapped it for the card that was in the machine when I bought it.  I'm using a Radeon HD 6500 series card, if that helps.

Hades

I think I may have an explanation of what's going on here.  I found a website called Crucial that scans your system and gives you details about the type RAM, hard drives and graphics cards that you both have installed currently and that your system can handle.

Apparently, mine is designed to handle only a maximum of 4 GB of memory.  Specifically, apparently it's only suppose to have four strips of 1 GB each installed.   Which means, this time I think I'm just going to buy a brand new PC off the shelf and go from there.  Though it will of course mean having to accept the inevitable and use Windows 10, something I've been avoiding like the plague since I really like my Windows 7.   But, I eventually got over the trauma of having to move on from XP so I suppose that this too shall pass.

I appreciate the help from everyone though.