Question 16gb of ram installed, but only 7.9gb usable

Andrew Krosley

Prominent
Jan 3, 2022
10
0
510
Ryzen 7 2700x
MSI b450 Pro-VDM
Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 3200 MHz DDR4 Ram 2x8 in slot 2 and 4
MSI OC RX570 8GB
1tb
1ssd
750 PSU

So recently I got a 16gb kit of Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 3200 MHz ram. I installed them and windows detected 16gb and in the bios it detected 16 gbs. But everytime I boot up into windows I check task manager and it says that only 7.9gb of ram are usable. And suggestions? I’ve booted up each ram stick and each one has booted up. As well I updated the bios.
 

jasonf2

Distinguished
When you are defining usable are you meaning available or installed? If it is available it just means that the OS has loaded stuff into about half of your RAM the 7.9 is what you have left, this is perfectly normal. Look at memory under resource monitor and it should show your available cached, total and installed physical memory amounts.
 

Andrew Krosley

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Jan 3, 2022
10
0
510
My apologies. When I look at the ram specifications in the settings area “about” it says I have 16gb and 7.9gb usable. As well when I open task manager is says 2.2/7.9. So its saying that I have 7.9 usable. It says I have 2 DIMM slots used. So half of my ram is in Hardware reserved. So a quick summary, windows detected that I have 2 DIMM slots which is a total of 16gb, and it says 16gb on the top, but I can only use 7.9gb out of the 16gb, and the rest is in hardware reserves(8,1)
 
My apologies. When I look at the ram specifications in the settings area “about” it says I have 16gb and 7.9gb usable. As well when I open task manager is says 2.2/7.9. So its saying that I have 7.9 usable. It says I have 2 DIMM slots used. So half of my ram is in Hardware reserved. So a quick summary, windows detected that I have 2 DIMM slots which is a total of 16gb, and it says 16gb on the top, but I can only use 7.9gb out of the 16gb, and the rest is in hardware reserves(8,1)
It's better to just show a screenshot than those long descriptions.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

Which BIOS version did you update to?
 

Andrew Krosley

Prominent
Jan 3, 2022
10
0
510
I just switched my ram slots from 2 and 4 to 1-2 and I now have 14.9 usable. That’s strange. The only probably is that my ram is not in single channel, not duel channel.