SOLVED RAM not entirely usable
- Thread starter Behnam
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That is normal.
You are using 32-bit Windows. 32-bit operating systems are limited to accessing 4GB only. But on top of that, because of how Windows maps hardware addresses in 32-bit mode, you cannot even access the full 4GB. That is why you only see 3.46GB.
Please understand this is nothing new. It has always been that way with 32-bit operating systems. It is a matter of physics. Every byte of RAM requires its own address. In a 32-bit system, addresses are 32 bits long. That means there are only 4,294,967,296, or 4GB, possible 32-bit addresses. There are workarounds, notably Physical Address Extension (PAE), but it is not ideal.
To use the full 4GB and beyond, you need to upgrade to 64-bit Windows. Then Windows will be able fully utilize your 8GB.
You are using 32-bit Windows. 32-bit operating systems are limited to accessing 4GB only. But on top of that, because of how Windows maps hardware addresses in 32-bit mode, you cannot even access the full 4GB. That is why you only see 3.46GB.
Please understand this is nothing new. It has always been that way with 32-bit operating systems. It is a matter of physics. Every byte of RAM requires its own address. In a 32-bit system, addresses are 32 bits long. That means there are only 4,294,967,296, or 4GB, possible 32-bit addresses. There are workarounds, notably Physical Address Extension (PAE), but it is not ideal.
To use the full 4GB and beyond, you need to upgrade to 64-bit Windows. Then Windows will be able fully utilize your 8GB.
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That is not uncommon if you don't use a separate graphics card. With many integrated graphics systems, a big chunk of system RAM (~64MB is common) is stolen... umm... err... "shared" for use by the integrated graphics.
If you want your full 4GB of RAM available, install a separate graphics card. Cards come populated with their own RAM dedicated for use by the GPU (graphics processor unit).
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Not unusual if there is an onboard / integrated video card.
Some memory resources are often allocated / shared to support that device's performance and consequently not available to the OS.
Sometimes that and or the amount of memory can be controlled within the BIOS
AND Bill beat me to it by a matter of seconds....
Some memory resources are often allocated / shared to support that device's performance and consequently not available to the OS.
Sometimes that and or the amount of memory can be controlled within the BIOS
AND Bill beat me to it by a matter of seconds....
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Only thing is that PC has a dedicated videocard with 256MB memory...
I think this is due to the chipset of the computer as it has an ICH7 chipset I just found out......
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Then you need to make sure the integrated graphics is not still enabled in the BIOS. It should have automatically been disabled when the card was installed. But it could have been manually re-enabled (perhaps to run extra monitors) or something faltered.