Windows 10 RAM issues. 8gb installed, but only 4gb available.

[Greninji88]

So as the title says, I have a windows 10 laptop that has RAM issues. I have 8gb installed, but in Task Manager, under performance, it states that only 4gb is available. Any help? Thanks

 

[Reiten]

Kind of hard to say with only this much info. The most likely case would be the RAM not being installed correctly(I'm going off the assumption that it's 2 x 4GB sticks). Another possibility would be a faulty RAM stick, though in most cases with faulty RAM there should be errors.
You can try checking the BIOS and see if it also shows only 4GB there. If you're comfortable you might open the laptop up and reinstall the RAM.

 

[Greninji88]

Kind of hard to say with only this much info. The most likely case would be the RAM not being installed correctly(I'm going off the assumption that it's 2 x 4GB sticks). Another possibility would be a faulty RAM stick, though in most cases with faulty RAM there should be errors.
You can try checking the BIOS and see if it also shows only 4GB there. If you're comfortable you might open the laptop up and reinstall the RAM.

Thanks, sorry for the limited info, it's a friends laptop. Yeah, in the BIOS it says 8000*mb of RAM. Yes it's also two 4gb RAM sticks, SODIMM, DDR3. I guess I could just replace the RAM with spare 4gb chips, and see how it goes. If anyone has any other advice, feel free to share!!

*It wasn't exactly 8000mb, it was something like 8063mb, but I can't remember the exact numbers...

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Stupid question:
Do you have the 32 bit version of Windows installed? Microsoft doesn't allow PAE for 32 bit end user operating systems for whatever reason.

Sometimes even 64 bit Windows doesn't use all available memory (I never understood this) -- make sure you have the drivers for your motherboard installed. Nowadays most drivers should be available with Windows Update.

 

[Greninji88]

Stupid question:
Do you have the 32 bit version of Windows installed? Microsoft doesn't allow PAE for 32 bit end user operating systems for whatever reason.

It's 64-Bit Windows 10.

 

[Reiten]

Thanks, sorry for the limited info, it's a friends laptop. Yeah, in the BIOS it says 8000*mb of RAM. Yes it's also two 4gb RAM sticks, SODIMM, DDR3. I guess I could just replace the RAM with spare 4gb chips, and see how it goes. If anyone has any other advice, feel free to share!!

*It wasn't exactly 8000mb, it was something like 8063mb, but I can't remember the exact numbers...

If it shows up in the BIOS then it gets detected, so it's installed correctly. If you want to really make sure the RAM is ok maybe try running memtest.
Honestly, aside from a 32bit system, I can't think of any reason for windows, not to detect the RAM. Maybe try to live boot a linux distro to see if RAM shows up there.

 

[JuanMena]

Set the amount of usable size with Windows+R then type msconfig, then set your amount of usable ram to whatever you have or need.

 

[tech3475]

What model laptop is it?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Stupid question:
Do you have the 32 bit version of Windows installed? Microsoft doesn't allow PAE for 32 bit end user operating systems for whatever reason.

Sometimes even 64 bit Windows doesn't use all available memory (I never understood this) -- make sure you have the drivers for your motherboard installed. Nowadays most drivers should be available with Windows Update.

I believe it's a driver issue, most drivers just aren't compatible with PAE.

Post automatically merged: Jun 8, 2025

I've not encountered x64 Windows not being able to use all available memory in a while (beyond the obvious reason of memory being reserved for iGPU) though I have encountered it in the past, not sure what causes it also. Some suggested there is some amount of address space reserved by the BIOS/UEFI for addressing hardware, but not sure (in any case, the amount "missing" should be small when this is the case)

So as the title says, I have a windows 10 laptop that has RAM issues. I have 8gb installed, but in Task Manager, under performance, it states that only 4gb is available. Any help? Thanks

There are 2 possibilities.
Either you're running a 32 bit version of Windows.
Or, since this is a laptop, the other 4 GB is reserved for the iGPU. Some amount of RAM is always reserved for the iGPU though 4 GB seems like a lot if you are only running basic programs.
Anyway, it's easy to check. Find This PC in the start menu, right click and go to Properties. Under system type it will tell you some combination of 32-bit or 64-bit operating system and x86/x64 CPU.
You can also get to that page from Settings->System->About.

 

[Silterpy]

So as the title says, I have a windows 10 laptop that has RAM issues. I have 8gb installed, but in Task Manager, under performance, it states that only 4gb is available. Any help? Thanks

Did you just ask this on reddit? Just saw a post just like this. Anyways it might be a 2x4gb ram kit to make the 8gb

 

[K3Nv4]

Check in bios Enable XMP/EXPO:
Select the desired profile. Many kits support multiple profiles, so start with Profile 1.

 

[Greninji88]

Did you just ask this on reddit? Just saw a post just like this. Anyways it might be a 2x4gb ram kit to make the 8gb

No

 

[CyberPal69]

If it really is Windows 10 x64 as you stated, then I would check and see how much of the RAM the system has reserved for the iGPU. There should be a setting in the BIOS to select how much RAM to reserve for the graphics. This is usually shown in MB, so 4GB would be 4096MB.

 

[Greninji88]

If it really is Windows 10 x64 as you stated, then I would check and see how much of the RAM the system has reserved for the iGPU. There should be a setting in the BIOS to select how much RAM to reserve for the graphics. This is usually shown in MB, so 4GB would be 4096MB.

I'll have a look...

Post automatically merged: Jun 9, 2025

I believe it's a driver issue, most drivers just aren't compatible with PAE.

Post automatically merged: Jun 8, 2025

I've not encountered x64 Windows not being able to use all available memory in a while (beyond the obvious reason of memory being reserved for iGPU) though I have encountered it in the past, not sure what causes it also. Some suggested there is some amount of address space reserved by the BIOS/UEFI for addressing hardware, but not sure (in any case, the amount "missing" should be small when this is the case)

There are 2 possibilities.
Either you're running a 32 bit version of Windows.
Or, since this is a laptop, the other 4 GB is reserved for the iGPU. Some amount of RAM is always reserved for the iGPU though 4 GB seems like a lot if you are only running basic programs.
Anyway, it's easy to check. Find This PC in the start menu, right click and go to Properties. Under system type it will tell you some combination of 32-bit or 64-bit operating system and x86/x64 CPU.
You can also get to that page from Settings->System->About.

I'll install the drivers from DVD, and see how that goes. Thanks

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I'll have a look...

Post automatically merged: Jun 9, 2025

I'll install the drivers from DVD, and see how that goes. Thanks

Never install drivers from DVD. They're horribly outdated.
Anyway, drivers aren't going to make your RAM show up, that part was directed at KleinesSinchen.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Anyway, drivers aren't going to make your RAM show up, that part was directed at KleinesSinchen.

Wrong. While I don't remember the details, I've had a case where installing drivers improved the situation. It's not very likely, but possible.
As for the off topic part: Windows 32 bit will use >4GB of RAM when the check is patched and run perfectly stable. I think XP RTM (no service pack) will use PAE out of the box. There might be some rancid drivers causing problems, but generally the limit is artificial. Sadly pretty much everyone bought the address space explanation with 2^32 ignoring the actual address size.

 

[Jayro]

I know that the more RAM that gets installed, the BIOS gives a larger chunk to use as dedicated GPU memory.

My laptop came with a 4GB stick, and the laptop gave 512MB of it to the GPU, and Windows got the rest. Then I upgraded to 32GB (16GB x2 sticks) and that bumped my GPU memory to 2GB, and 30GB for Windows.

But I can't imagine Windows would do a 4GB/4GB split like that between the OS and the iGPU.

 

[K3Nv4]

Wrong. While I don't remember the details, I've had a case where installing drivers improved the situation.
As for the off topic part: Windows 32 bit will use >4GB of RAM when the check is patched and run perfectly stable. I think XP RTM (no service pack) will use PAE out of the box. There might be some rancid drivers causing problems, but generally the limit is artificial. Sadly pretty much everyone bought the address space explanation with 2^32 ignoring the actual address size.

Could depends on a multitude of factors, how old the board is, what the max capacity for ram GB support is, clock speeds matching. If it's new Gen it's always best to download specific bios update from the manufacturers website it's self.

You can run a cmd script for more info

wmic memorychip get BankLabel, Capacity, MemoryType, Speed: This command retrieves detailed information about the RAM modules installed in your system.

 

[Jayro]

There may be a newer BIOS update available for the laptop model, worth checking.

 

[Greninji88]

There may be a newer BIOS update available for the laptop model, worth checking.

I couldn't find an update.... It's an ASUS N65VZ Notebook. The BIOS files wouldn't flash ..