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Hardware Reserved RAM

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Hello! I have been reading forums and information all day on this subject and cannot figure this one out. I have an HP Pavilion

dv7 4177nr on Win7 64bit with 6GB of ram. I noticed the other day that the RAM in the task manager was only around 1.7GB with

about 1GB usable and only 400MB or so of that free. After some looking in my system specs I noticed that it says 6GB total

1.74GB usable. Further looking around shows that I have 4358MB 'reserved for hardware'(WTH?!) I have tried the msconfig -

max mem solution, updated my BIOS which does not support the remapping, unistalled/reinstalled windows 7, reset the lappy to

factory defaults, switched the mem modules around, tried booting with each of them individually in each slot, updated video card

drivers, I have run CPU-z, all looks normal. I think it noteworthy that this problem just started happening.. Win7 used to read

and allow use of all the RAM.



I have contacted and spoke with an HP rep who ran me through everything I had already done and then told me to mail it to the

HP repair center. I am currently waiting for the prepaid box to come in so I can ship it out. Anyhelp would be GREAT!!!

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Memory Authority

Incorrect RAM?

Post some pictures of the Memory and SPD tab pages from CPU-Z. For the SPD tab page make sure you get a picture for each Slot # that has RAM in them.
Memory Expert

This is what you want to verify is 6GB (about 6144MB):

Task Manager-> Performance-> Physical Memory-> TOTAL

If that is 6GB then everything should be fine. you should ALSO see how much is "available" and that should be roughly the difference between your 6GB Total and the amoung used in the graph. So if you show 2GB used in the graph it should be a THIRD up the graph and the "available" amount should be about 4GB (x1024 for MBytes).

*FYI, I see your RAM is on two sticks, a 2GB and 4GB module. That is NOT how a computer should be setup. Computers are either setup as Dual or Tri-Channel. When you use just two mismatched-size RAM modules the computer accesses the RAM slower. If it was DUAL channel you're getting HALF the normal speed. Normally you'd have two sticks for dual such as 2x2GB. Instead of the 666MHz for one stick you get 1333MHz for two.

If you don't play video games it doesn't really matter, but if you do AND have a high-end graphics card you could bottleneck your system.
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Memory Authority

If there is no user configurable setting for the 4GB memory remapping option then it is suppose to be done automatically when more than 4GB is detected. Even with memory remapping properly enabled, there is a chance this problem will still occur.

Did you make any firmware (i.e. BIOS update) or hardware change that triggered this to happen? How about any BIOS setting changes?

No on both counts. I didn't noticed until about three or so days ago, but it had been slower for about three weeks. I just didn't check up on it until then. Also in the Win7 system rating thing it used to give my RAM a 7.1 (when I first got the lappy) now it only gets a 5.2 so I know there has been a change.

@Photonboy The total is only 1786MB... Also, the two sticks is how it came from HP. I have not upgraded or altered anything. I have been reading around and what I need to do apparently is match my RAM as it has solved some other users problem. Also thanks for the replies!!

Raine,

I have the same problem, and neither the HP guy nor the Costco guy has ever heard of the problem nor knows what to do. Did you ever get it fixed so your computer can use all the RAM you paid for? I think this is just crap. Please reply and let me know what I need to do to get this crap fixed. I also have the pavilion HP.
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