4gb Ram But Only 2.97 Usable

1. Only Half Of My Ram Is Usable
2. Ram Usable Mean
3. How To Change Usable Ram
4. Is 2 Gb Ram Good
5. Fix Usable Ram In Windows 10

How-To Geek Forums / Windows 7

Dear Slembroccoli, Its for every 32 bit system, the only RAM which is being allocated for use by Operating System is 3GB. A 32 bit system cannot utilize more than 3GB of RAM whether you have 3GB or 4GB installed. If you are having a 4GB of RAM, the rest 1GB will definitely get wasted.

Re: 4GB Installe RAM but only 2.75GB Usable IMO you can never have too much ram. My home win7 box has 6gig and my work box has 8 The ram is not being wasted. Usually you lose about 800meg in a 32bit OS due to hardware drivers and pointers as your observation has confirm though you see 1.3gig used. I recently built my own computer and it uses 2x2gb ddr2 ram but when i go to control panel and view my system specs it says: Installed Memory (RAM): 4GB (2.97 GB usable) Plz help I'm using windows 7 Professinal 64bit! 32bit cant take more than 4gb i know that but its a 64bit OS!:P. It even says System type: 64-bit Operating System. I’m having an Acer Nitro 5 Ryzen 5 Quad Core - (8 GB/1 TB HDD/Windows 10 Home/4 GB Graphics/AMD Radeon RX 560X) AN515-43 Gaming Laptop (15.6 inch, Obsidian Black, 2.3 kg) laptop. It shows 8 GB Ram. But I can use only 5.8 GB Ram usable. It is having AMD Radeon RX 560X 4GB graphics.

(Solved) - Installed memory (RAM): 4,00 GB (2,99 GB usable)

Hi
Does anyone know why i cant use that 1,01 GB of RAM? Is it 32 or 64 bit related?
I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit.

You are using 32bit ?
Is 256MB reserved for graphics ?

Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter type: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series
Total available graphics memory: 1789 MB
Dedicated graphics memory: 512 MB
Dedicated system memory: 0 MB
Shared system memory: 1277 MB
Display adapter driver version: 8.632.1.2000
Primary monitor resolution: 1366x768
DirectX version: DirectX 10

Is this what you're talking about?

i have the same problem, for me its not a 32-bit 64-bit issue, its got to do with RAM channels.

32 bit windows only used 2.97gb of ram...i had the same thing.. i upgraded to 64x and it uses all 4gb of ram...

usually it is a problem with 32-bit systems, is this a new PC? i guess its a laptop right?
have you installed any new RAM lately?

It's a Dell Studio 1555 (laptop)

I have NOT modified ANY hardware.

32 bit systems have a MAX memory capacity of 4GB's. That said, BIOS has to REMAP itself to memory and it will take from the TOP (4GB) down and make that space unavailable to the OS. In addition, ANY devices that need memory also reserve memory for themselves and remove it from the OS usage. Even your video cards 512MB's gets remapped to the real system memory and unavailable to the OS.

Some articles/web pages that might interest you :

http://blogs.msdn.com/hiltonl/archive/2007/04/13/the-3gb-not-4gb-ram-problem.aspx
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/01/14/windows-vista-32-bit-and-64-bit-x86-and-x64-maximum-supported-ram-physical-memory-limit/

Irv S.

So, what you're saying is that any software that requires memory will 'eat' that from the usable RAM??
Does the video card also 'eat' from the RAM? (The video card has dedicated memory)

Feeling stupid.
Anton

Dear Slembroccoli,
Its for every 32 bit system, the only RAM which is being allocated for use by Operating System is 3GB. A 32 bit system cannot utilize more than 3GB of RAM whether you have 3GB or 4GB installed. If you are having a 4GB of RAM, the rest 1GB will definitely get wasted. There is no way to utilize it in a 32 bit OS.

Anton, yes, even though you have a memory ram on your video card, for faster access, on 32 bit systems it is MAPPED, not put in RAM, to the upper RAM Address available to the OS. Once MAPPED, that memory is NO LONGER available to the OS. So, between the BIOS re-mapping, Video re-mapping, and other device re-mapping, you are generally going to have the OS see 3.2 GB's or less on 32 bit OS's with 4 GB's of memory (or more which it can't see at all) installed.

From the last link I gave you :

Since only a maximum of 4GB virtual memory address range is available in Windows Vista, which are sub-divided or allocated some memory address range to manage both the computer’s PCI memory address range (also known as MMIO) which used for system video graphics cards, BIOS, IO cards, networking, PCI hubs, bus bridges, PCI-Express, and RAM, so the amount of available RAM is always less than 4 GB. BIOS takes up about 512 KB, with video or graphic accelerator card needs memory address for at least the amount of memory on the graphics card. Which mean if you have 256 MB VRAM graphic card, at least 256 MB already been used up from your 4 GB memory available to Windows Vista. The net result is that a high performance x86-based computer may allocate 512 MB to more than 1 GB for the PCI memory address range before any RAM (physical user memory) addresses are allocated. So the typical available RAM for the OS will be reduced to between 3 GB and 3.4 GB.

Understand what the above says, 1/2 GB for BIOS, 1/2 GB for Video card, and I quote from the above, 'so the amount of available RAM is always less than 4 GB. BIOS takes up about 512 KB, with video or graphic accelerator card needs memory address for at least the amount of memory on the graphics card.'.

Irv S.

Thank you all for your patience, i think i understand now.
Im gonna see what i can do to get a 64 bit operating system now.
Speaking of which, does anyone know if Windows Anytime Upgrade can upgrade a 32 bit system into a 64 bit?
In that case, I was thinking that I could re-install my Win 7 Home Premium 32 bit and then Use Anytime Upgrade to upgrade to 64 bit (cheaper than byuing retail version) ; )

THANKS!
Anton

Win7 32 Bit should look something like this depending on hardware.
---
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 3.50 GB
Available Physical Memory 2.81 GB
Total Virtual Memory 6.99 GB
Available Virtual Memory 6.30 GB
Page File Space 3.50 GB
Page File C:pagefile.sys
---
Regards,
Rick P.

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Last updated on December 7th, 2017

Only Half Of My Ram Is Usable

Recently I have upgraded the memory from 4GB to 8GB on a system with the AsRock 4Core1600Twins-P35 mainboard. After installing Windows 7 (64-bit) and while looking at the System Properties, I realized that the system while properly recognizes the installed memory of 8 GB, says that only the 3,25 GB are usable.

This tutorial contains instruction to resolve the '3,25 GB usable' issue while over 4GB RAM installed on a Windows 64bit OS.

How to FIX: Windows detects 3.25 GB RAM when over 4GB are installed.

Ram Usable Mean

Important: Before you continue to the solution below:

How To Change Usable Ram

1. Ensure with motherboard's vendor, that your motherboard supports over 4GB of RAM.

2. Ensure that you have installed an 64-bit version of Windows (Right click on 'Computer' icon and select 'Properties'. Then look if at the 'System Type', displays: 64-bit Operating System).

1. Power On your computer and press 'DEL' or 'F1' or 'F2' or 'F10' to enter BIOS (CMOS) setup utility.
(The way to enter into BIOS Settings depends on the computer manufacturer).

2. In BIOS menu, look for a setting named 'Memory Remap' or 'Memory Hole Mapping'* and set it to Enabled.

Is 2 Gb Ram Good

* Note: The 'Memory Remap' or 'Memory Hole' setting, can be commonly found under Advanced > Chipset Configuration.

3.Save and Exit from BIOS setup and start Windows normally.
4. When your enter Windows, launch System Properties again. Now you should see that Windows can recognize all the installed RAM without the 3,25GB limitation

That's it! Let me know if this guide has helped you by leaving your comment about your experience. Please like and share this guide to help others.

Fix Usable Ram In Windows 10