Hey Guys, I have been having an issue with my pc where I have 16Gb of ram installed but only 11.9 Gb usable this started a couple months ago. I know I probably wont use more then 8Gb of ram but I don't like how its limiting how much ram I can use. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
16Gb Installed 11.9 Usable?
- Thread starter Gliphs
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game junky
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- Feb 2, 2012
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- Jun 19, 2011
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If you have 4x4Gb sticks installed its possible one is bad or not making good contact in the dimm slot. I would first try reseating the memory if it still only shows 12gb then test the sticks 1 at a time in slot 1(closest to the cpu), if one fails to boot it bad, if all 4 work then use 1 to test in all the dimm slots 1 by one to see of a slot has failed.
- Oct 17, 2011
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Check to make sure you don't have a lot of applications running at startup: downloaders, app "accelerators" (*cough* Adobe *cough*), etc. Shut them all off, then double-check Window's System page again. I bet the amount of usable RAM just went up.
- Oct 17, 2011
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OK. So, on the BIOS startup, it is showing 16GB, right?
If it is, remove a single stick of RAM. Verify that it's showing 12GB total RAM on BIOS startup & in Windows. Make a note of how much usable RAM Windows shows available. Retest with each of the sticks. If you consistently get the same results, & you see both the total & usable RAM figures dropping by 4GB (matching the RAM stick you just removed), then Windows is correctly reporting total & usable RAM...it's just using a lot of RAM for whatever it's doing.
Alternately, use Windows Task Manager to see what's using your memory. On the Processes tab, click the button that says "Show processes from all users", and click the column heading labeled "Memory". This will sort all processes by order of the RAM they're using, biggest first. That'll help give you a clue as to what's taking up the memory.
The best time to do this, though, is right after booting up. That should limit any leftover applications from being in memory.
If it is, remove a single stick of RAM. Verify that it's showing 12GB total RAM on BIOS startup & in Windows. Make a note of how much usable RAM Windows shows available. Retest with each of the sticks. If you consistently get the same results, & you see both the total & usable RAM figures dropping by 4GB (matching the RAM stick you just removed), then Windows is correctly reporting total & usable RAM...it's just using a lot of RAM for whatever it's doing.
Alternately, use Windows Task Manager to see what's using your memory. On the Processes tab, click the button that says "Show processes from all users", and click the column heading labeled "Memory". This will sort all processes by order of the RAM they're using, biggest first. That'll help give you a clue as to what's taking up the memory.
The best time to do this, though, is right after booting up. That should limit any leftover applications from being in memory.
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