OMEN BIOS limited settings

[ErnestsM]

So a few days ago, I found out that my laptop only uses half of my combined memory. I have 32GB of physical RAM combined, but it only uses 15.5GB and the rest is reserved.

I was trying to simply fix this problem with going in the BIOS settings, but it has no memory settings whatsoever, so I just set the BIOS settings to default and even updated it to the latest version. "But did this fix my issue?" No. On the msinfo32 I checked, it still only uses half of my combined memory and this is becoming an issue not only gaming, but just simply using the laptop for multitasking everyday things.

I've also checked, "maybe the memory module isn't properly installed," it's perfectly fine like it should be.

I just find this situation weird, because I bought this laptop for it to have amazing performance and great multitasking, but it can't even use all of it's physical RAM installed? Great, just great.

[alexbelm48]

Hi, have you tried opening msconfig and manually setting the "Maximum memory" field?

You can open it by pressing Win+R on your keyboard, typing in msconfig in the text box field and pressing Enter/clicking OK.:

A window will pop-up. Click "Advanced options..." to open that second dialog window, and you will be able to configure the aforementioned field:

You could set something like 32768 first. If this makes the computer slow, progressively reduce that value (e.g. 32512, 32256, 32000) until you have a normal, working computer again.

I had an HP laptop a while ago of which I had put 2 sticks of 8GB RAM each, but was advertised as only supporting 8GB max. I had to do that to make that other half available to the operating system. Some implementations of the ACPI tables are buggy, so a bit of tinkering is necessary to bypass this :]

Thanks,

Alexis

[ErnestsM]

Hey,

so I did try this before also, but this time I actually put the following examples you gave me to put in as maximum memory. Sadly nothing changed, so whenever I rebooted my laptop and went to task manager, it still said "Hardware reserved: 16.5 GB".

I truly am confused and have no idea how to fix the problem. On the original HP BIOS settings there was the memory... "something" that let you control how much does the hardware reserve the memory. I believe it normally should be about half a GB or so.

[alexbelm48 · Accepted solution]

Hi again,

First off all, what you're talking about is probably an option that allows you to gauge how much system RAM is allocated for the integrated/discrete graphics chip. Now, maybe this indeed disappeared with a BIOS update -- in this case, you won't have much choice but to either reset the UEFI's NVRAM or downgrade if you can.

Try to turn off your laptop, disconnect your AC adapter and hold the power button for at least 30s to 1min. Turn it back on and check if there's still that hardware reserved portion of system RAM.

Thanks,

Alexis