8GB RAM available, but only 2GB available for use

[RelentlessDude]

The problem: 
From the title, you can guess that the I have an issue with my RAM where there is physically 8GB of RAM installed in my HP 15q-bu013TU laptop but only 2GB is available for use. The rest 6GB is being shown as reserved for hardware. 

What all methods I have already tried:

1. Unchecking the Maximum memory checkbox in the msconfig boot menu.

2. Run the "Extensive Test" on Memory and the results said that there was nothing wrong with the RAM and 7.80GB was shown to be available. 

3. Reset the UEFI bios (the advanced settings seemed to be locked for me)

Please Help.

[Dilip_18]

Hi@RelentlessDude,

Welcome to the HP Support Community! I'd like to help!

I see you are experiencing issues with the HP PC shows 8GB RAM available, but only 2GB available for use.

I have a few recommendations 

• Windows (by default) reserves 2GB of the possible 4GB addressable space for its system calls, IO, graphics RAM, etc. So even if you have more than 2GB of real RAM, you're highly unlikely to make use of the part over the 2GB boundary. 
• It could be a combination of the 32-bit memory limitation and the discrete graphics - the video memory of the GPU is likely mapped below 4GB thus pushing some of the RAM above the 4GB mark where 32-bit Windows can't access it. Switching to 64-bit Windows would most likely fix it.

Hope this helps! Keep me posted. 

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