Only 3200mb ram available out of 4gb

[Srimasis Rout]

Hello, My pc specs are
dual core e2140,
asrock 1333 d667, bios version 1.9,
2*2gb ddr2 ram (770- 800mb hardware reserved, i dont know what is this),
hd6670 gddr5 1gb,
64 bit win8.1.
on inspecting bios i found the shared video memory is set to auto. then i changed it to 1 mb, but to my surprise, the usable ram reduced to around 2.8 gb. I turned off onboard gpu, still the same. I removed the graphic card, set the the onboard gpu memory to 64mb in bios, still no help. as rock official website says the motherboard can't use 4gb max due to chipset limitation. But i do remember that before installing windows 8.1 64bit, i was using vista 32bit, and it was accepting 4gb ram (i know 4gb usable ram on 32 bit is strange, but i remember it was showing 4gb on my computer->properties). So I can say problems did started after installing 64bit win8.1. Mobo experts please help. Thanks :)

[- wardog -]

Re: Only 3200mb ram available out of 4gb

You'll find the remainder is lurking as "Hardware Reserved"

[parsec]

Re: Only 3200mb ram available out of 4gb

The differences between Vista and Windows 8.1 are quite substantial. Including how they deal with memory usage, or really allocation of memory.

Your "missing" 800MB of memory is not gone, or not being recognized, it is being used. Hardware reserved is memory that is set aside for use by certain hardware ahead of time, whether or not it is being used. You can see that if you start Windows Resource Monitor.

Earlier versions of Windows like Vista did not do this, or at least did not tell you they did if they had hardware reserved memory.

The point of that is to insure certain hardware has memory to work with regardless of what the other demands for memory are in a PC. If this was not done, it is possible that the hardware would not work due to a lack of memory.

[Srimasis Rout]

Re: Only 3200mb ram available out of 4gb

The differences between Vista and Windows 8.1 are quite substantial. Including how they deal with memory usage, or really allocation of memory.

Your "missing" 800MB of memory is not gone, or not being recognized, it is being used. Hardware reserved is memory that is set aside for use by certain hardware ahead of time, whether or not it is being used. You can see that if you start Windows Resource Monitor.

Earlier versions of Windows like Vista did not do this, or at least did not tell you they did if they had hardware reserved memory.

The point of that is to insure certain hardware has memory to work with regardless of what the other demands for memory are in a PC. If this was not done, it is possible that the hardware would not work due to a lack of memory.

Thanks sir for helping me, so i guess there is no solution to this. But one suspicious looking thing is even my boot screen (the screen which tells mobo info and starts before windows boots) says my total ram is 3200 mb, but my bios says i have 2*2gb sticks running at 667mhz.

[parsec]

Re: Only 3200mb ram available out of 4gb

Here's my memory usage in Windows 8.1, from Resource Monitor. I have two 4GB DIMMs installed:



Free + Standby = Available. 4811 + 1245 = 6056.

Available + In Use + Hardware Reserved + Modified = Total Memory. Installed = 8192.

6056 + 1498 + 587 + 51 = 8192 = Total Memory = Installed.

What is the solution you are looking for? What does Resource Monitor say your Installed memory amount is?