15GB out of 16GB usable in Win7?

Zoson

Zoson

Supreme [H]ardness
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Aug 4, 2001
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I do a LOT of virtualization. My work pc had 8GB ram, and I recently got it upgraded to 16GB. However, when I look in system properties Windows says 15GB usable out of 16GB total.

It's a C2Q, running on a Q45 motherboard. When it had 8GB ram it said 8/8GB. I am using a discrete GPU(9800gt).

Where could my extra GB of ram be going? I've checked the bios to make sure nothing in there is reserving the space...
 
Hmmm. Strange, 4x4Gb i take it?
If you were to run CPUZ, does it see all the RAM installed and running as it should?
 
Rossi~ said:
Hmmm. Strange, 4x4Gb i take it?
If you were to run CPUZ, does it see all the RAM installed and running as it should?
Click to expand...

Yes, 4x4GB sticks.
Yes, all the memory shows up correctly in CPUz.

I also updated my BIOS to the latest release available.
 
That other gig couldnt be shared with integrated graphics could it?

nvm, thats what u get for not reading..
 
Does the board disable onboard graphics when discrete is installed automatically? I know most newer boards do, but I've run across some that don't. Device manager is only showing the one GPU? (I know you checked the bios for other stuff - just trying to clarify)
 
That's a noodle scratcher you've got there. And you've checked that there isn't any application that is reserving a % of the RAM for whatever reason?
 
Windows 7 Home Premium or Business? Home Premium has a 16GB limit. Complete shot in the dark here, but if it takes into account your video card memory too, that would be 15GBs for your OS, and 1GB for your video card, and the last gig of memory is lost much like in a Win32 environment perhaps?
 
It's ultimate 64 bit.
Like i said, with the 8gb of memory, it shows 8/8.
 
Rossi~ said:
That's a noodle scratcher you've got there. And you've checked that there isn't any application that is reserving a % of the RAM for whatever reason?
Click to expand...

The odd thing is I first noticed this when I went into my VMWare server configuration to increase the amount of memory it's allowed to reserve. It only allows me to reserve up to 15GB.
 
Does the motherboard support that much ram. I know alot of 775 boards maxed out at 8 gig
 
Can you give us the model of or motherboard? Who made it and what is the exact model number on it?
 
in resource monitor (the button on the performance tab of task manager, among other places) go over to the memory tab. it will tell you the amount of RAM that is
-in use
-being modified
-on standby
-hardware reserved
-free
and will also give you totals about how much is available, cached, and total installed. if resource monitor doesnt report all the RAM, windows is not seeing all the RAM.
 
It's a Foxconn board made for Dell. The workstation is an Optiplex 780. Yes it supports 16GB ram.

@ghost6303:
It does show that 1027mb is being hardware reserved... sigh i guess i should give the bios another once-over. I wonder if this bios is broken and the vga is enabled even though I have it set to disabled?
 
Ah, I think I found the problem. We have Optiplex models for demo's at my office. Optiplex and a few other particular Dell models start reserving a gig of RAM when you go over 8gigs for some reason. Basically the BIOS takes it. The older M4400 laptops do this as well, and because Dell locks everything down, there is nothing you can do. According to Dell, this is "normal". Proprietary OEM's for the win!!!

Here is an SS from one of our demo boxes (Optiplex 790):
http://img145.imageshack.us/i/capturedr.png/


Dude, you got a Dell...
 
Last edited:
Zoson said:
It's a Foxconn board made for Dell. The workstation is an Optiplex 780. Yes it supports 16GB ram.

@ghost6303:
It does show that 1027mb is being hardware reserved... sigh i guess i should give the bios another once-over. I wonder if this bios is broken and the vga is enabled even though I have it set to disabled?
Click to expand...


Nice I think my 755's tap out at 8 gig. Though I think those are still ddr2 models
 
Zoson said:
Thanks for the info Proxy... damn that sucks.
Click to expand...

Np man. It does suck. What sucks even worse was we found this out with a $15K Power-Edge server. When we bumped it from 24 to 32 gigs, it was seeing 32 with 30.8 usable. When I placed a call to Dell enterprise support to try and get the memory RMA'd the engineer told me that this was how their BIOS was and I could not change it.
 
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