- Jun 8, 2020
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I have a Lenovo IdeaPad 320-15IKB laptop which came with 8gb of ram but suddenly it shows 4gb of ram. I tried rebooting and stuff but nothing happened. I contacted the Lenovo online cc and they said me to reset my BIOS to default and it should work. It did. But it was just for that specific boot, when I turned on my laptop next day it was back to 4gb and I tried the fix again but it didn't work in just one reset to default BIOS settings. I tried multiple times and finally once it showed me the sweet 8192mb figure and I reset again to see 4096mb ram.
I got my temporary fix as pressing F2 everytime I turn on my PC and resetting BIOS to default countless number of times until I see the 8192mb (8gb) figure and than rather than saving settings, just exiting without saving and my windows boots up.
P.s. My laptop has dual channel RAM, one integrated in motherboard, another is a SK-Hynix HMA851S6AFR6N-UH 4gb stick which is removable and expandable upto 32gb. I tested my pc when it was on 4gb by removing the SK-Hynix ram while it was running and it had no effect on the running. When it was running on 8gb i did the same and pc obviously crashed as all ram was being used.
I have performed memtest86 test on my pc and my ram doesn't give away any errors at all. I also tried changing BIOS versions [latest to oldest and vice versa] to see if that fixes the problem permanently or temporarily but it didn't.
Basically my life now is turning on my laptop and wasting 10-25 minutes resetting BIOS to default and hoping it shows up 8gb and then use my pc and until I completely power off the ram stays 8gb (if I reboot after 8gb is detected or do anything that doesn't involve complete power cut it's 8gb, if i shut down and start it's back to 4gb but if I restart it isn't).
Sometimes I also have wasted like more than an hour doing this but only 4gb of ram showed up and I lost my patience.
I want a permanent fix for which Lenovo forces me to go to the service center, but in the work from home scenerio I just can't leave my laptop for a day. I know it's a software issue and not hardware hence if I get a proper guide I think I can fix it myself. I googled, but didn't find anyone else facing the same problem as me, the closest to my problem were people who bought new rams that didn't match the hardware but since my rams are OEM installed, I don't have that issue either.
I'm thinking it's a memory remapping issue as my pc fails to remap the entire memory and only maps the motherboard memory and leaves the external slot, and since lenovo doesn't provide that option in BIOS settings or anywhere even if memory remapping is the fix, I can't try that.
Btw my SK-Hynix ram is being detected as a 4gb stick by softwares like Memtest86 or CPU information softwares like CPU-z but it's only detected as Slot#1 memory and isn't being detected by the BIOS or windows or anything, just an attached hardware part. Also, I have obviously tried all the basic fixes like removing and reattaching and blowing dust or whatever and it didn't do any good also ram doesn't have any problems either so like I mentioned it's a software/firmware issue like remapping or something.
Anyone with the knowledge please help!
My configuration:
Laptop: Lenovo IdeaPad 320-15IKB
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Ram: 8gb Dual channel
Graphics Card: Nvidia 940mx
Processor: Intel i5-7200U
BIOS: 4WCN43WW
(I know 4WCN46WW is the latest but my trial and error reset to default temp fix works faster on this version for some unknown reason i.e. less reboots)
For any more hardware details you can also look up internet, I have not changed any internal part. Sorry for this being too big but I wanted everyone to know that I have tried every basic fix and need something different from what I'm using.
I got my temporary fix as pressing F2 everytime I turn on my PC and resetting BIOS to default countless number of times until I see the 8192mb (8gb) figure and than rather than saving settings, just exiting without saving and my windows boots up.
P.s. My laptop has dual channel RAM, one integrated in motherboard, another is a SK-Hynix HMA851S6AFR6N-UH 4gb stick which is removable and expandable upto 32gb. I tested my pc when it was on 4gb by removing the SK-Hynix ram while it was running and it had no effect on the running. When it was running on 8gb i did the same and pc obviously crashed as all ram was being used.
I have performed memtest86 test on my pc and my ram doesn't give away any errors at all. I also tried changing BIOS versions [latest to oldest and vice versa] to see if that fixes the problem permanently or temporarily but it didn't.
Basically my life now is turning on my laptop and wasting 10-25 minutes resetting BIOS to default and hoping it shows up 8gb and then use my pc and until I completely power off the ram stays 8gb (if I reboot after 8gb is detected or do anything that doesn't involve complete power cut it's 8gb, if i shut down and start it's back to 4gb but if I restart it isn't).
Sometimes I also have wasted like more than an hour doing this but only 4gb of ram showed up and I lost my patience.
I want a permanent fix for which Lenovo forces me to go to the service center, but in the work from home scenerio I just can't leave my laptop for a day. I know it's a software issue and not hardware hence if I get a proper guide I think I can fix it myself. I googled, but didn't find anyone else facing the same problem as me, the closest to my problem were people who bought new rams that didn't match the hardware but since my rams are OEM installed, I don't have that issue either.
I'm thinking it's a memory remapping issue as my pc fails to remap the entire memory and only maps the motherboard memory and leaves the external slot, and since lenovo doesn't provide that option in BIOS settings or anywhere even if memory remapping is the fix, I can't try that.
Btw my SK-Hynix ram is being detected as a 4gb stick by softwares like Memtest86 or CPU information softwares like CPU-z but it's only detected as Slot#1 memory and isn't being detected by the BIOS or windows or anything, just an attached hardware part. Also, I have obviously tried all the basic fixes like removing and reattaching and blowing dust or whatever and it didn't do any good also ram doesn't have any problems either so like I mentioned it's a software/firmware issue like remapping or something.
Anyone with the knowledge please help!
My configuration:
Laptop: Lenovo IdeaPad 320-15IKB
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Ram: 8gb Dual channel
Graphics Card: Nvidia 940mx
Processor: Intel i5-7200U
BIOS: 4WCN43WW
(I know 4WCN46WW is the latest but my trial and error reset to default temp fix works faster on this version for some unknown reason i.e. less reboots)
For any more hardware details you can also look up internet, I have not changed any internal part. Sorry for this being too big but I wanted everyone to know that I have tried every basic fix and need something different from what I'm using.
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