usable memory showing 2.64 while the total installed is 8GB on elitebook 820

[Patravane]

HI Geeks,

I am working for a compagny with more than 300 hp assets . loptops mainly.

I have discovered that on new bought elitebook 820  G2 with 8GB memory installed, windows 7 is showing this in compyter system information:

Installed memory (RAM) : 8.00 GB (2.64 usable)

system type 32bits

BIOS version/Date Hewlett-packard M71 Ver. 01.12, 11/5/2015

SMBIOS Version 2.7

can someone help to find what is going wrong here.

I really need to sort this out as sometimes, users will complain that their laptops are freezing.

thanks in advance for your inputs.

regards

.

[doughjohn · Accepted solution]

Hi

I believe you are subject to the 32 bit memory limit that occurs within Windows.

The limit is 4GB, so to use your 8GB fully you would need a 64 bit OS.

Mark Russinovitch, a highly respected individual writes this...

32-bit Client Effective Memory Limits 

While 4GB is the licensed limit for 32-bit client SKUs, the effective limit is actually lower and dependent on the system’s chipset and connected devices. The reason is that the physical address map includes not only RAM, but device memory as well, and x86 and x64 systems map all device memory below the 4GB address boundary to remain compatible with 32-bit operating systems that don’t know how to handle addresses larger than 4GB. If a system has 4GB RAM and devices, like video, audio and network adapters, that implement windows into their device memory that sum to 500MB, 500MB of the 4GB of RAM will reside above the 4GB address boundary, as seen below:

The result is that, if you have a system with 3GB or more of memory and you are running a 32-bit Windows client, you may not be getting the benefit of all of the RAM.  On Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista RTM, you can see how much RAM Windows has accessible to it in the System Properties dialog, Task Manager’s Performance page, and, on Windows XP and Windows Vista (including SP1), in the Msinfo32 and Winver utilities. On Window Vista SP1, some of these locations changed to show installed RAM, rather than available RAM, as documented in this Knowledge Base article.

[Patravane]

HI Guy,

you are right , I forgot that the max memory you can address while using 32 bits address is 4GB.

I also have Laptops with 4GB installed but only 2.9 are usable. And, after reading the article you have suggested I understand now and it is clear for me.

It shows that it is time to migration our applications into 64 bits OS system.

I will mark your reply as so.

regards,

Patrice.

[doughjohn]

Prego