3.96 usable memory?

[Todd]

Hi Guys,

I just caught this over on a customer's Windows 7 Home edition
in Control Panel, System:

Installed memory (RAM) 8.00 GB (3.96 usable)

What is "usable" all about?

Many thanks,
-T

 

[Bob I]

Is that a 32 bit Windows 7 system?

 

[Todd]

Is that a 32 bit Windows 7 system?

I took a screen shot. Says it is a
System type: 64-bit Operating System

Oops, I see it is not home edition, it is "Windows 7 Ultimate"
Service Pack 1

-T

 

[Paul]

I took a screen shot. Says it is a
System type: 64-bit Operating System

Oops, I see it is not home edition, it is "Windows 7 Ultimate"
Service Pack 1

-T

Could you give some details about the hardware, make and model ?

Maybe the chipset is lacking in some way.

Your listed result of

"Installed memory (RAM) 8.00 GB (3.96 usable)"

seems unlikely, but maybe there is an explanation somewhere.
I'd expect to see something like "3GB usable" or even as
low as "2GB usable" in the case of one half-baked Dell computer.
3.96 as a value, is harder to explain.

Paul

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Hi Guys,

I just caught this over on a customer's Windows 7 Home edition
in Control Panel, System:

Installed memory (RAM) 8.00 GB (3.96 usable)

What is "usable" all about?

Many thanks,
-T

Is it an Intel system with an 900-series chipset? Apparently some Intel
chipsets have trouble with anything over 4GB. Look at this thread:

64 bit windows 7 not recognizing 4 gb of ram
http://social.technet.microsoft.com.../thread/ebb61437-163e-4b63-84bf-986c9fe3475a/

Note that some Intel Chipsets had problems with 4GB of Ram which has nothing to do with Microsoft.

For example see the following:

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/applnots/30167103.pdf
The 915G/915GV/910GL Express chipset GMCH memory interface can support up to four double-sided DIMMS for a maximum of 4 GB of system memory. The memory technologies supported are 256-Mb, 512-Mb, and 1-Gb SDRAM technologies.

Then it goes on to say that:
http://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/specupdt/30146806.pdf
14. 2GB DIMM Module Support in Asymmetric Mode
Problem: 2GByte DIMM modules based upon 1Gbit memory technology are not supported when the total physical system memory is greater than 3.5GB and is configured for asymmetric mode.
Addresses to physical memory are not properly decoded. Symmetric mode and single channel mode are not affected.
Implication: Memory may not be initialized correctly.
Workaround: The BIOS workaround is a memory initialization update contained in the latest BIOS specification update.

I also know that there is a similar issue with the Intel 945 Express chipset.

In some situations this may never be fixable.

Also possible, and mentioned in the same thread above, it's possible
that somebody has purposefully limited the maximum memory available to
Windows using the Msconfig utility. Look at the Azureblaze response from
Wednesday, August 12, 2009 11:30 PM:

Hey everyone,

I had this problem and fixed it.

I was playing around with the installs, anyway on one HD I had X64 Ultimate Win7 clean. This machine listed 4GB and it was all usable (verified by looking at the performance tab in task manager) looking good right?

I decided to upgrade my Vista X64 Ultimate to Win7 X64 Ultimate on the other HD on the same machine .

Upgrading instead of a clean install is not something I would normally do but I was like "What the heck, I'm doing it!"

After all my drivers and things were updated in the system info it listed 4.00Gb (3.25GB available) This showed there and in the performance tab for memory usage, NOT GOOD.

So after some looking here is what I did to fix it:

Msconfig > Boot tab > Advanced > I unchecked the maximum memory box and rebooted.

For some reason mine was set to maximum memory checked and the value was 0.

On the clean install this option was unchecked.

I don't know if this is a typical issue when doing an upgrade instead of a clean install or if it's something I was playing with on the Vista machine and it carried over but check it out if you have the problem, it 100% fixed the issue here. Upon reboot it was golden.

*Edit - Verified someone else had the same issue when upgrading of the max memory box being checked which effectively brought their RAM to 3.25 available.
Good luck.

Lots of good helpful advise from this one thread.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Todd]

Could you give some details about the hardware, make and model ?

Maybe the chipset is lacking in some way.

Your listed result of

"Installed memory (RAM) 8.00 GB (3.96 usable)"

seems unlikely, but maybe there is an explanation somewhere.
I'd expect to see something like "3GB usable" or even as
low as "2GB usable" in the case of one half-baked Dell computer.
3.96 as a value, is harder to explain.

Paul

My screen shot says it is a Dell Studio XPS 8100 with an Intel Core
i7-860

 

[Todd]

Is it an Intel system with an 900-series chipset? Apparently some Intel
chipsets have trouble with anything over 4GB. Look at this thread:

64 bit windows 7 not recognizing 4 gb of ram
http://social.technet.microsoft.com.../thread/ebb61437-163e-4b63-84bf-986c9fe3475a/

My screen shot says it is a Dell Studio XPS 8100 with an Intel Core
i7-860

 

[Paul]

My screen shot says it is a Dell Studio XPS 8100 with an Intel Core
i7-860

Example of the problem, here.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19328089.aspx

By the way, I like Yousef's /maxmem idea, that using
msconfig, the boot parameters have been modified to limit
the system to 4GB total. That makes more sense, than a
remapping issue. After all, the box probably shipped with
an x64 OS on it. And i7-860, the memory controller and
"Northbridge" equivalent, are all inside the processor itself.

And the system wouldn't report "Installed memory 8.00GB", unless
that much was installed. If one or two DIMMs were broken,
I could understand "Installed memory 4.00GB", but since
it seems to be detected, to me that implies the memory
is really there. And then that /maxmem idea makes more
sense.

Paul

 

[choro]

How many EWES should one provide for RAMS? I hear they are pretty
prolific and can service quite a lot of EWES!

Is there a minimum requirement for EWES per RAM?
-- choro --

 

[Twayne]

In

Hi Guys,

I just caught this over on a customer's Windows 7 Home
edition in Control Panel, System:

Installed memory (RAM) 8.00 GB (3.96 usable)

What is "usable" all about?

Many thanks,
-T

The 3.96 Gg simply indicates the amount of free RAM address space not
assgned to anything (thus it's unused). Windows tries to use ALL of RAM if
it can and in this case it doesn't have anything to put in the lat 3.96 Gig
of RAM.
Windows will give up the used RAM if it's not needed and the 3.96 isn't
enough, so it's really not a big deal. If that stll isn't enough RAM, it'll
start to use the paging file on disk.

HTH,

Twayne`

 

[Roy Smith]

In

The 3.96 Gg simply indicates the amount of free RAM address space not
assgned to anything (thus it's unused). Windows tries to use ALL of RAM if
it can and in this case it doesn't have anything to put in the lat 3.96 Gig
of RAM.
Windows will give up the used RAM if it's not needed and the 3.96 isn't
enough, so it's really not a big deal. If that stll isn't enough RAM, it'll
start to use the paging file on disk.

Yeah, but did you notice how much ram was installed? The OP's pc had 8
GB, but yet only 3.96 is usable? I have 8 GB on my system and have 7.87
GB available for Windows to use. So where did he lose over 4 GB of ram?


--

Roy Smith
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Thunderbird 5.0
Saturday, July 30, 2011 12:42:38 PM

 

[Ken Blake]

Yeah, but did you notice how much ram was installed? The OP's pc had 8
GB, but yet only 3.96 is usable? I have 8 GB on my system and have 7.87
GB available for Windows to use. So where did he lose over 4 GB of ram?

If you have 7.87GB available, you are clearly running 64-bit Windows
7. The OP didn't say, but he may be running 32-bit (although 3.96GB is
a very high number for 32-bit Windows 7).

 

[Todd]

Example of the problem, here.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19328089.aspx

The link explains a lot. This is what happens when you
purchase a $400.00 computer from Wal Mart. Wal Mart probably
got a real deal from Dell too. Lots of bad motherboards
to flush out the back door.

The customer is well under the 3.7 GB of usable memory,
so I am just doing to ignore it.

Thank you all for the comments and excellent references.

Many thanks,
-T

 

[Paul]

If you have 7.87GB available, you are clearly running 64-bit Windows
7. The OP didn't say, but he may be running 32-bit (although 3.96GB is
a very high number for 32-bit Windows 7).

That's the thing. That number is suspiciously high, for a "3.x" limit.
Typical values might be 3GB available, or 3.25 or 3.5GB. I don't know
if there are any systems with few enough system busses, to hit 3.7GB
even. Seeing 3.96 to me, doesn't imply making room for address space
for busses. So that number is coming from some other side effect.
And /maxmem makes more sense for that.

Paul

 

[Seth]

The link explains a lot. This is what happens when you
purchase a $400.00 computer from Wal Mart. Wal Mart probably
got a real deal from Dell too. Lots of bad motherboards
to flush out the back door.

The customer is well under the 3.7 GB of usable memory,
so I am just doing to ignore it.

Don't ignore it. Take care of it now while the machine is still hopefully
under warranty so it can be replaced\serviced if need be. The person paid
for that memory, it should be available for use.

 

[Todd]

Don't ignore it. Take care of it now while the machine is still
hopefully under warranty so it can be replaced\serviced if need be. The
person paid for that memory, it should be available for use.

You are not factoring in the effect of the down time on the customer.
(Which you did not know about because I did not mention it.) Not the
hill I want to die on.

 

[Paul]

You are not factoring in the effect of the down time on the customer.
(Which you did not know about because I did not mention it.) Not the
hill I want to die on.

Isn't it worth checking msconfig, for any maxmem value that was set ?
That won't require returning the machine. And I don't see a hardware
mechanism at the moment, to justify returning the machine. It's pretty
hard to get that 3.96GB value - that's what I'm counting on.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/farbs3231/maxmem.png

In the example here, the user had problems actually reverting to full RAM usage.

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/158150-ram-issues-msconfig-help.html

Paul

 

[Vic RR Garcia]

You are not factoring in the effect of the down time on the customer.
(Which you did not know about because I did not mention it.) Not the
hill I want to die on.

Sorry, that does NOT compute; if the customer is affected by downtime,
and he really need more than 3 GB of RAM, he/she should never had gotten
a cheap computer.
You get what you pay for, do not come here whining about it.
Unless there is a MAXMEM statement, or a bad contact on the SIMMS,
obsolete BIOS, bad config, the MBO is bad, and need to be replaced.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

My screen shot says it is a Dell Studio XPS 8100 with an Intel Core
i7-860

The Dell website has no mention of what chipset is in that thing. Next
time you get there, you might want to run the latest CPU-Z on it, and
check out which chipset is on it under the Motherboard section.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

If you have 7.87GB available, you are clearly running 64-bit Windows
7. The OP didn't say, but he may be running 32-bit (although 3.96GB is
a very high number for 32-bit Windows 7).

The OP has subsequently said it's 64-bit W7 Ultimate.

Yousuf Khan