3.95gb Usable of 8gb on Windows 8.1 x64

[Jay Grant]

Hello.
I have custom built my computer and after a year of use finally noticed something wrong with having 4.1gb of 8gb of memory reserved for hardware. I have since been looking for the solutions online but have had no such luck. Help here would be much appreciated as i am well outwith my depth when it comes to RAM.
Here is a list of the things i have tried:
- Swapping the slots used, 1 and 3 to 2 and 4
- Ran a memory diagnoses on windows (no results)
- Unchecking Maximum memory in Msconfig
- Bios update to latest version
- Possibly others i cant remember

Components
- MSI 990fxa GD-80
- AMD FX 8320
- XFX 7870 tahiti LE
- Corsair Vengeance Pro (2x4gb) CMY8GX3M2A1600C9

 

[digitaldoc]

You will never have all the RAM free as a certain amount goes to run Windows, and whatever other programs you have running in the background, including antivirus software as well as your drivers. This is typically between 1.5 to 3 GB on most systems.

I would reboot the system, and see what background stuff can be shut down.

Avoid Google Chrome as your browser as it is well known for having a memory leak. This basically means that RAM gets dedicated to it, but not released when it no longer needs it.

I also run CleanMem which can monitor the RAM, and flush it every few minutes to keep the RAM not being used free.