[SOLVED] Windows 10 Reserving A Lot Of RaM

[PraiseTheSun]

Hello everyone, here’s something that’s had me stumped for a while, I've been asking around with no luck.

Windows 10 (I’m running home X64) ram, and only 8gb being available to me. I use 4x4gb ram sticks from the same pack. Windows only offers me just under 8, using the other half “reserved for hardware”.

My googling led me to believe this was something to do with onboard graphics processes, but this board (MSI 970 gaming - running on latest version) has no integrated GPU. I use the AMD R9X290 x2 GPU in it and it works as a charm, barely ever under load with what I use it for.

So where is this ram going? I turned off the “max memory” allocation in advanced settings. I went into my bios to play around with dual channel and MHz of my ram, but unfortunately this led to no boot and a CMOS reset.

I also have 2 x 8gb sticks, and 2 x 4gb from another pack. I don’t mix and match them, but no matter which pack I use I only get a max of 8gb of ram available to me, suggesting the ram isn’t faulty.

I tried different socket combinations but the results are always the same. 98% available up until 8gb, once I surpassed 8gb, anything over 8gb is reserved for hardware.

Normally 8gb is fine but I’m currently trying to do multiple instances of something and thus my ram is running out, which is especially frustrating when I know there’s more ram plugged into the Pc.

Memory tests say there’s no issues with the ram sticks (one did flag up, but on a rerun it came clear. For the sake of consistency I’m not using this stick currently.)

Other things to note; Windows does see the 16gb. The bios also sees it at 16gb.

The Pc was upgraded from win 7 a long time ago (don’t know if this matters)

Honestly hard to tell how long it’s been like this, at least 2+ years, maybe more.

The ram in the machine all runs at the same frequency and is the same DDR.

Any advice or guidance would be appreciated. Thanks for your time

 

[Bob.B]

Hello everyone, here’s something that’s had me stumped for a while, I've been asking around with no luck.

Windows 10 (I’m running home X64) ram, and only 8gb being available to me. I use 4x4gb ram sticks from the same pack. Windows only offers me just under 8, using the other half “reserved for hardware”.

My googling led me to believe this was something to do with onboard graphics processes, but this board (MSI 970 gaming - running on latest version) has no integrated GPU. I use the AMD R9X290 x2 GPU in it and it works as a charm, barely ever under load with what I use it for.

So where is this ram going? I turned off the “max memory” allocation in advanced settings. I went into my bios to play around with dual channel and MHz of my ram, but unfortunately this led to no boot and a CMOS reset.

I also have 2 x 8gb sticks, and 2 x 4gb from another pack. I don’t mix and match them, but no matter which pack I use I only get a max of 8gb of ram available to me, suggesting the ram isn’t faulty.

I tried different socket combinations but the results are always the same. 98% available up until 8gb, once I surpassed 8gb, anything over 8gb is reserved for hardware.

Normally 8gb is fine but I’m currently trying to do multiple instances of something and thus my ram is running out, which is especially frustrating when I know there’s more ram plugged into the Pc.

Memory tests say there’s no issues with the ram sticks (one did flag up, but on a rerun it came clear. For the sake of consistency I’m not using this stick currently.)

Other things to note; Windows does see the 16gb. The bios also sees it at 16gb.

The Pc was upgraded from win 7 a long time ago (don’t know if this matters)

Honestly hard to tell how long it’s been like this, at least 2+ years, maybe more.

The ram in the machine all runs at the same frequency and is the same DDR.

Any advice or guidance would be appreciated. Thanks for your time

Just to take a peek.
Run this and post a link to the results page.
PC Benchmark

 

[PraiseTheSun]

I ran the benchmark, here's the link: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/45464595
Despite it saying the RAM isnt great, it does see all 16GB though.

 

[dorsai]

Have you looked in TaskManager to see what's eating memory ? Your Userbench indicates your SSD is not doing so well...is it full ?

 

[Bob.B]

I ran the benchmark, here's the link: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/45464595
Despite it saying the RAM isnt great, it does see all 16GB though.

Well that did not shed any light.
Does cpu-z show all ram sticks are Exactly the same?
In msconfig can you show a screen shot of boot/advanced?

 

[mikewinddale]

Click Start --> Run --> type "msconfig" and press enter.

Go to the Boot tab.

Click the "Advanced options" button.

See if the "Maximum memory" checkbox is checked. If it is checked, then uncheck it. This setting is typically what causes Windows to reserve memory.

 

[PraiseTheSun]

Hey everyone I apologize for being unresponsive. I went through and did more testing. Still nothing seemed to work. In the end I gave in and decided to start replacing my ram despite there being no obvious indication. After replacing 2 specific sticks (in this case 2 & 4) the pc now finally uses all & 16gb, (well 15.9 but that’s what I was hoping for) I wish it was a more satisfying conclusion but it did the trick.

I then tried to boot my Pc on those two “faulty” sticks and it boots. Odd. I have another pc so I tried in that one (gigabyte mobo) and it wouldn’t boot if either or both of those sticks were present. So I’m assuming they were somehow faulty but not picked up by memtest nor windows memory diagnostics.