4GB of RAM but only 3.50GB are useable.

So as the title said, I have 4gb of total ram on my computer, and it says only 3.5GB are useable. I am running 64bit of windows 8. Anyone know how I can get the use of all 4gbs?

Hello Jonny, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Does your computer's motherboard have an integrated graphics chip that could have .5 GB of your RAM allocated to it in your BIOS settings?


If you are not sure, then please post back with what brand and model your computer or motherboard is.

as brink said your system probably as a onboard or CPU integrated Video , Video need memory, so it share the same memory.

I'm sure my computer doesn't have an integrated video. Before I installed windows 8 I had windows vista ultimate 64bit and it always shows 4.0gb out of 4.0gb are useable. By the way, my computer is an hp m7360n.

Jonny,

Looking at your HP m7360n specs, it shows it has a P5LP-LE motherboard. It's specs shows that it has a Integrated graphics using Intel GMA 950 on it.

Even though the integrated graphics is not available when using your default GeForce 6200SE graphic card, you most likely will still have the .5 GB of RAM set in BIOS to be allocated to the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics.


You would need to boot into your BIOS (setup) and double check the settings for this, and set it to not share any RAM (memory) with the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics.

I've check the bios and can not find anything that can let me change the setting. The thing that don't get is when I had windows vista ultimate 64bit and i check the system proprieties all 4.0gb of then ram is useable but when i installed windows 8 only have 3.5 useable. Do you think i should check with hp's website to see if there's a bios update that can fixed this?

Since it was fine in Vista, open msconfig to double check to make sure that you have the Maximum memory box unchecked like in the tutorial below.

Memory - Set Maximum Amount Used by Windows 7 - Windows 7 Forums

I've follow the instructions in the link but it is still saying 3.5gb only useable. Is anyone else having this issue?

For now, I'd say double check each and every setting and option in your BIOS for a possible "integrated peripherals" setting for either "AGP arperture size", "onboard video", "graphics", "integrated graphics", or "shared memory".

Your computer's manual doesn't get into your BIOS settings, so I'm afraid I can't help much more on this part. Especially since your computer originally was from 2005 with XP.

Hello Brink,

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I registered especially to thank-you.

I was following this thread because ive had the same problem since I bought my computer.

my computer always reported 3.25GB but up until I came across this I ASSumed it was how it should be.

I have now got the full 4gb (for the first time!)
Thanks for the free upgrade!

For the ops info, on mine I had to enable the remapping feature.
wish you the best of luck.
Now ive registered I may as well stay

Mark

wizza said:

Hello Brink,

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I registered especially to thank-you.

I was following this thread because ive had the same problem since I bought my computer.

my computer always reported 3.25GB but up until I came across this I ASSumed it was how it should be.

I have now got the full 4gb (for the first time!)
Thanks for the free upgrade!

For the ops info, on mine I had to enable the remapping feature.
wish you the best of luck.
Now ive registered I may as well stay

Mark

Click to expand...

H

ello Mark, and welcome to Eight Forums.

I'm happy to hear it was able to help you.

Brink, thanks for the help. I'm gonna do more research to see if I am the only one having this issue and I'll post updates on here. Once again, thanks for your effort on helping me try to fix this.