[HELP] windows 10 not using all installed memory

[Dooda_fisen]

hey, so I have been using my PC with 2 newly installed RAM sticks for a few weeks now, after which i noticed a slight increase in my ram usage within task manager and i saw only 8'GB of my 16 is actually showing up within task manger, upon looking in my BIOS for my motherboard it says my total installed ram is 8 but it says all four of my ram slots are filled with 4GB sticks, I was wondering what is going on here and I've tried everything i can think of to fix it, I have tried reseating the RAM, updating the BIOS and making sure there is no boot memory limit applied.

 

If you need it the specs are:

intel i7 7700K CPU

4x G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 2133MHz RAM

ASUS H170-Pro Motherboard

Windows 10 OS

 

images attached are the screenshots of how my memory appears within task manager and how it appears within my motherboard BIOS.

 

any help is greatly appreciated

 

[NelizMastr]

Could be bad RAM, run memtest for a couple of hours or ideally overnight to see if it throws any errors. 

[Dooda_fisen]

18 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

Could be bad RAM, run memtest for a couple of hours or ideally overnight to see if it throws any errors. 

Okay i will try this tonight, any other suggestions if that doesnt work?

[vanished]

The fact that even the BIOS is reporting 8 GB shows this probably isn't a Windows problem.  Oddly all sticks are showing up though, so it's probably not faulty... then again I can't think of any other cause.

[NelizMastr]

12 minutes ago, Dooda_fisen said:

Okay i will try this tonight, any other suggestions if that doesnt work?

Figure out which DIMMs aren't actually being detected would be a better place to start. So basically test to see if it'll post with each stick tested separately in each slot, so move a DIMM through all of the slots and see if it POSTs and repeat for all 4. 

[Dujith]

If its certain DIMM slots not working (ie: The do show up but do not add up to the memory pool) 

Then it might be the CPU not making good enough contact with some pins. Might be worth it to reseat the CPU too then.

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, Dooda_fisen said:

hey, so I have been using my PC with 2 newly installed RAM sticks for a few weeks now, after which i noticed a slight increase in my ram usage within task manager and i saw only 8'GB of my 16 is actually showing up within task manger, upon looking in my BIOS for my motherboard it says my total installed ram is 8 but it says all four of my ram slots are filled with 4GB sticks, I was wondering what is going on here and I've tried everything i can think of to fix it, I have tried reseating the RAM, updating the BIOS and making sure there is no boot memory limit applied.

 

If you need it the specs are:

intel i7 7700K CPU

4x G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 2133MHz RAM

ASUS H170-Pro Motherboard

Windows 10 OS

 

images attached are the screenshots of how my memory appears within task manager and how it appears within my motherboard BIOS.

 

any help is greatly appreciated

 

You're probably using the 32 bit version of Windows, you need to clean install the 64 bit version.

[GoldenLag]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

You're probably using the 32 bit version of Windows, you need to clean install the 64 bit version.

32-bit of windows would only show 4 GB as avavible. i know this since im writing from a 32-bit windows install on a 8 GB ram laptop. 

 

try refitting the Ram. had a similar issue when i rebuilt my PC after an upgrade. 

[Master Disaster]

4 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

32-bit of windows would only show 4 GB as avavible. i know this since im writing from a 32-bit windows install on a 8 GB ram laptop. 

 

try refitting the Ram. had a similar issue when i rebuilt my PC after an upgrade. 

32 bit Windows will only show 4GB with PAE enabled (Physical Address Extension), without PAE 32 bit Windows can only address 3.5GB of RAM and despite having 2 X 4GB sticks showing as installed it's only showing 3.5GB.

 

It has to be a Windows X86 issue.

[Dooda_fisen]

1 hour ago, NelizMastr said:

Figure out which DIMMs aren't actually being detected would be a better place to start. So basically test to see if it'll post with each stick tested separately in each slot, so move a DIMM through all of the slots and see if it POSTs and repeat for all 4. 

I have reseated all RAM slots and all RAM sticks are working and all slots are detecting RAM. However having more than two slots filled does not increase the detected memory  more than 8GB, it will detect the slots as being filled but will not detect it as RAM actually useable.

[Dooda_fisen]

23 minutes ago, Dujith said:

If its certain DIMM slots not working (ie: The do show up but do not add up to the memory pool) 

Then it might be the CPU not making good enough contact with some pins. Might be worth it to reseat the CPU too then.

I have reseated the CPU along with the RAM test i did and the issue still persists even with a reseated CPU.

[GoldenLag]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

32 bit Windows will only show 4GB with PAE enabled (Physical Address Extension), without PAE 32 bit Windows can only address 3.5GB of RAM and despite having 2 X 4GB sticks showing as installed it's only showing 3.5GB.

 

It has to be a Windows X86 issue.

His pc however registers 8 GB as being installed aswell as 8 GB being avavible for use even though 16 GB is installed.

 

my laptop registers 8 GB as being installed but only 4 GB as accesible (2.9 GB). if he had 32-bit windows but 16GB installed it would register 16GB of memmory, but only 4 GB as accesible. 

 

 

i certainly do not believe it is a OS issue, but a reinstall could fix the issue. 

[Master Disaster]

Just now, GoldenLag said:

His pc however registers 8 GB as being installed aswell as 8 GB being avavible for use even though 16 GB is installed.

 

my laptop registers 8 GB as being installed but only 4 GB as accesible (2.9 GB). if he had 32-bit windows but 16GB installed it would register 16GB of memmory, but only 4 GB as accesible. 

 

 

i certainly do not believe it is a OS issue, but a reinstall could fix the issue. 

Oh crap, I apologise. I get what you're saying now and yes, I misread the graph entirely.

 

You're right.

[Dooda_fisen]

Do you think it has something to do with the motherboard not being able to power all hardware sufficiently and disables the use of those two slots because it cannot provide adequate power to them? thats the only thing i can think of, any more fix suggestions would be greatly appreciated

[GoldenLag]

4 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Oh crap, I apologise. I get what you're saying now and yes, I misread the graph entirely.

 

You're right.

no problem as long as people realize their misstakes.

 

1 minute ago, Dooda_fisen said:

Do you think it has something to do with the motherboard not being able to power all hardware sufficiently and disables the use of those two slots because it cannot provide adequate power to them? thats the only thing i can think of, any more fix suggestions would be greatly appreciated

swap location of Ram. set the working ram where the broken ram is. Locate the non-functioning RAM by adding and removing. ramsticks. if a memmory channel is bad a 2 out of 4 slots will be bad. if there is 2 bad memmory sticks they wont work if you attempts to boot using only that one stick. 

(hope that made sence)

if a memmory channel is bad it is either mobo or CPU

 

simply test memmory one by one in different slots. 

[Dooda_fisen]

Just now, GoldenLag said:

no problem as long as people realize their misstakes.

 

swap location of Ram. set the working ram where the broken ram is. Locate the non-functioning RAM by adding and removing. ramsticks. if a memmory channel is bad a 2 out of 4 slots will be bad. if there is 2 bad memmory sticks they wont work if you attempts to boot using only that one stick. 

(hope that made sence)

if a memmory channel is bad it is either mobo or CPU

 

simply test memmory one by one in different slots. 

already done, all slots and RAM sticks work, but the system will not use the other 8GB in my system, the pc boots and posts fine with either channel filled on their own. the memory will never read over 8GB useable memory though

[GoldenLag]

1 minute ago, Dooda_fisen said:

already done, all slots and RAM sticks work, but the system will not use the other 8GB in my system, the pc boots and posts fine with either channel filled on their own. the memory will never read over 8GB useable memory though

all i can say then is update BIOS and reinstall windows. ive got no clue. 

[Peskanova]

8 minutes ago, Dooda_fisen said:

already done, all slots and RAM sticks work, but the system will not use the other 8GB in my system, the pc boots and posts fine with either channel filled on their own. the memory will never read over 8GB useable memory though

If bios shows 8gb its related to the motherboard, maybe software (try updating bios) or some bad pin on the socket . (it read you all the RAM? , when you put 2 sticks shows you 8 gb with both pairs? , on the 4 sockets? (try 2 on first 2 sockets then 2 on the 2 last) 

[Peskanova]

Quote

If you find that 16Gb is not reported as the total physical memory fitted.
But the bios reports 16Gb of memory detected.

It means that the configuration of windows has been capped to see, or use only a set amount of physical memory in it`s configuration settings.

To check if the memory windows uses is capped.

Click on start.
In the search bar type : MSCONFIG.
Press enter.

A new window will open.

Click on the boot tab at the top of the new window.
Then click on the Advanced option tab.

A new window will open.
To the top left you will see a tick box for maximum memory.
If there is a value typed into the box bellow it remove all of the numbers.

Then un tick the maximum memory box if it is ticked.

Click ok
Then click apply.
Then ok again.

Restart the system.
Let windows load.

And again open up windows system information.

If it says Installed physical memory fitted as 16Gb.

source : http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3123587/shows-8gb-ram-16gb.html

[Peskanova]

Is your ram supported 4gb x 4 sticks on your motherboard? 

I'm searching on google and that might be the issue

[Dooda_fisen]

I have tried both of these fixes, neither have worked so far.

[Peskanova]

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1151/H170-PRO/H170-PRO_Memory_report.pdf?_ga=2.74883410.1364936766.1528388444-196778137.1521533710

check your model maybe you cant put 16gb in double dual chanel (4 slots)

[Dooda_fisen]

11 minutes ago, Peskanova said:

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1151/H170-PRO/H170-PRO_Memory_report.pdf?_ga=2.74883410.1364936766.1528388444-196778137.1521533710

check your model maybe you cant put 16gb in double dual chanel (4 slots)

maybe, i cant see my RAM model on here

[Dooda_fisen]

57 minutes ago, Peskanova said:

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1151/H170-PRO/H170-PRO_Memory_report.pdf?_ga=2.74883410.1364936766.1528388444-196778137.1521533710

check your model maybe you cant put 16gb in double dual chanel (4 slots)

also where did you find that chart? so i can find one for the next motherboard i purchase.

[Peskanova]

searching your model number + ram compatibility on google, it's very common