RAM size shows only 5.81 GB even though BIOS shows 8 GB

[yog28]

Hello,

I installed linux (manjaro) on my HP laptop - HP ryzen 5 quad core 3500 with AMD radeon graphics vega 8.

BIOS shows RAM : 8GB

However Linux shows only 5.81 GB of RAM available.

free -lh
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           5.8Gi       994Mi       4.2Gi        16Mi       656Mi       4.6Gi
Low:           5.8Gi       1.6Gi       4.2Gi
High:             0B          0B          0B
Swap:          8.8Gi          0B       8.8Gi

I want to get back the remaining 2 GB.

I know the UMA reserves 2GB for graphics, but I wish to change it and limit the UMA buffer size to 512 MB.

I dont see any BIOS option for changing UMA memory. Other laptops like Asus, acer have this facility.

Please let me know how can I get back the 2 GB of RAM ?

Regards

Yog

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Unfortunately, what you want to do is not possible.

Your notebook was intentionally designed that way.

HP released this document a while back, which explains the memory shortage...

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06526774

This seems to only apply to models with AMD Ryzen 3xxx processors.

Info on Microsoft PlayReady.

https://www.microsoft.com/playready/overview/

[yog28]

Thanks for the reply.

Mine is Ryzen 5 and not ryzen 3 as you say it is only applicable for ryzen 3xxx.

What about ryzen 5xxx series. Can this be changed ?

Or it is possible to at least add more RAM to the laptop (like is there some extra slot to add more RAM )?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Yes, my mistake but the same thing must be happening to your model too.

You should be able to add more memory to your notebook, but I cannot find a service manual.

Is this your model?

Wholesale HP 255 G8 (3K1G7PA) Notebook PC (AMD Ryzen 5-3500/ 8GB RAM/ 1TB HDD/ DOS/ With DVDRW/ 15.6...

Below is the link to the Crucial memory report for your notebook.

Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | hp - compaq | hp business notebooks | HP 255 G8 | Crucial.com

I think the max memory is wrong.

You should be able to add at least another 8 GB memory chip to your notebook, since the report indicates that it has two memory slots.