[SOLVED] Memory installed 8G but only 4G is usable

[NS90NS]

Hi,

I recently purshacse new 4G ram as an upgrade to my sony vaio laptop memory.

BIOS (R0300Y8) is showing System memory is: 8192MB
When running Top commannd in linux (while "memtester 4096 1" is running in background), it shows the following:

MiB Mem: 7810.6 total, 4400.1 free, 2438.4 used, 972.1 buff/cache
Mib Swap: 975.0 total, 975.0 free, 0.0 used, 5031.0 avail mem

So it can't go beyond 4G.

Also, when I run "memtester 7810.6 1" it shows a message that page is is 4096 which I don't know why.

------------------
Specs: https://www.sony-asia.com/electronics/support/laptop-pc-vpc-series/vpcea16fa/specifications
Memory specs:

• SO-DIMM Slots
  2 SO-DIMM slots (The pre-installed memory module uses two)

• Pre-installed/Max
  4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 2 (upgradeable up to 8 GB3)

Regards,
Nasser

 

[rocktalkrock]

I do not see the problem. Why do you believe only 4G is usable?

 

[NS90NS]

I do not see the problem. Why do you believe only 4G is usable?

Ths issue is that although I have installed 8G, I see no difference when it was at 4G RAM.

Also, when I run resource intensive applications, I can't go beoynd 4G utilizations. So the reaminnig 4G is not usable!.

I hope it is clear for you now.

 

[rocktalkrock]

Ths issue is that although I have installed 8G, I see no difference when it was at 4G RAM.

Also, when I run resource intensive applications, I can't go beoynd 4G utilizations. So the reaminnig 4G is not usable!.

I hope it is clear for you now.

You will not likely to notice much difference between 8GB and 4GB of ram. Windows is always working in the background using virtual memory to keep a portion of ram available and prevent crashes.

In Windows if you go to "PC Settings > System > About > Device specifications" it will list Installed RAM and how much of it is "usable".

 

[NS90NS]

I am using Linux

 

[rocktalkrock]

I am using Linux

The memory test you ran in Linux said you have a total of 7810.6 MiB ram, with 2438.4 MiB used and 4400.1 MiB free or available/unused.