Another win7 ram question

[Virgil Reeser]

I upgraded my HP 2000 laptop from 4Gb ram to 8Gb. Updated the BIOS. bios sees 8Gb. installed a minimal (drivers only) win7 and it sees 3.6Gb installed ram. Swapped position of ram sodimms. Reinstalled, same problem. Updated all drivers. Used msconfig to see min ram to 8192. Upgrading to Windows 8 is not an option. Linux may be an option of someone can recommend a distro that will work well with this machine. It fast, but I would like to use all the ram since I just paid for it. Just tried intsalling openSuse and it only sees 3.5Gb as well.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

I upgraded my HP 2000 laptop from 4Gb ram to 8Gb. Updated the BIOS. bios sees 8Gb. installed a minimal (drivers only) win7 and it sees 3.6Gb installed ram. Swapped position of ram sodimms. Reinstalled, same problem. Updated all drivers. Used msconfig to see min ram to 8192. Only windows 7 has this problem. Upgrading to Windows 8 is not an option. Linux may be an option of someone can recommend a distro that will work well with this machine. It fast, but I would like to use all the ram since I just paid for it.

This is an obvious question, but are you running 64-bit Win 7?

 

[Virgil Reeser]

I upgraded my HP 2000 laptop from 4Gb ram to 8Gb. Updated the BIOS. bios sees 8Gb. installed a minimal (drivers only) win7 and it sees 3.6Gb installed ram. Swapped position of ram sodimms. Reinstalled, same problem. Updated all drivers. Used msconfig to see min ram to 8192. Only windows 7 has this problem. Upgrading to Windows 8 is not an option. Linux may be an option of someone can recommend a distro that will work well with this machine. It fast, but I would like to use all the ram since I just paid for it.

This is an obvious question, but are you running 64-bit Win 7?

Should have stated that. Yes, running Win7 home premium x64

 

[maxwellmelon]

can you list a more specific model number or a config of your laptop. theres a huge list for hp 2000 laptop configs including amd and intel cpus

 

[dragonsqrrl]

What was the original memory config and what did you replace it with? I'm assuming you replaced 2x 2GB DIMMs with 2x 4GB DIMMs.

This is just a shot in the dark but is there a memory remapping BIOS setting you have to enable to address greater than 4GB of memory? I've heard of this being the case in the past, but not recently. But if this is the case it's strange that the motherboard recognizes the full capacity but Windows doesn't.

Have you tried running memcheck? Is all the memory recognized there?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

http://www.howtogeek.com/131632/hardware-upgrade-why-windows-cant-see-all-your-ram/

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-performance/how-do-i-enable-memory-remapping/8c0ab1ea-547b-4603-9b9a-fd72672eccb7?msgId=2906f898-0c91-4c88-b35f-43dbb158339b

 

[Virgil Reeser]

can you list a more specific model number or a config of your laptop. theres a huge list for hp 2000 laptop configs including amd and intel cpus

Sorry if I am answering all posts at once.

Model is HP 2000-216NR Notebook PC. Options in bios are limited. I cannot remap memory or change anything, other than the time and date. Most severely limited bios I have ever seen. The notebook came with one 4Gb ram stick. I added another of the same model number. The two sticks are identical. They strangest part is that the bios sees two sticks with a total of 8Gb. Win7 see 8 Gb installed, physical memory at 3.6Gb. Trying to figure out why the rest is seen as installed, but not as physical memory. The notebook can have up to 1973Mb video, but that would not account for all the unusable ram.
Built in memtest says everything is fine with all 8Gb

Strangest thing I have seen in 20 years working on computers. Yes, started back when 4Mb was a lot

 

[maxwellmelon]

can you list a more specific model number or a config of your laptop. theres a huge list for hp 2000 laptop configs including amd and intel cpus

Sorry if I am answering all posts at once.

Model is HP 2000-216NR Notebook PC. Options in bios are limited. I cannot remap memory or change anything, other than the time and date. Most severely limited bios I have ever seen. The notebook came with one 4Gb ram stick. I added another of the same model number. The two sticks are identical. They strangest part is that the bios sees two sticks with a total of 8Gb. Win7 see 8 Gb installed, physical memory at 3.6Gb. Trying to figure out why the rest is seen as installed, but not as physical memory. The notebook can have up to 1973Mb video, but that would not account for all the unusable ram.
Built in memtest says everything is fine with all 8Gb

Strangest thing I have seen in 20 years working on computers. Yes, started back when 4Mb was a lot

yep so even if your grapics are using the max it can from ram u should see 6gb for windows with the 2gb taken out for the video card.

can you hit control alt delt and then select task manager, go over to performance tab, click on resource monitor, on it go over to memory how much does it say is hardware reserve? how much does it say is installed?