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[Piotrhabera]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I seek advice on computer maintenance and repair. Today, I have discovered that out of 8 GB of RAM that I currently have at disposal, my computer detects (and by consequence utilizes) only half of that. If my memory is correct, utilizing the memory repair tool included within Windows 10 showed no errors but that was some time ago. What could cause my computer to detect only half of my RAM and what are potential solutions to this problem?

If an given solution requires funds to commence, I would like to know the exact amount of funds required to fully commence an given solution beforehand. I can spare no more than ~$250 converted into PLN currency.

For those who don't understand the above message written in bold: If an solution requires money to do, I'd like to know the price first.

Post intial edition: Not sure if I should ask this question under The Generic Computer Advice Thread megapost. Time shall be the judge here.

[Maximum Spin]

The first thing you should check if you haven't — it's not clear in the post — is whether the BIOS can recognise the memory. You should find out whatever way your motherboard expects you to enter the BIOS (you'll usually see a message like 'press DELETE to enter setup' while starting up, but every BIOS is different so it may well be one of the Fkeys or something), then look around to try to find out how much memory the BIOS thinks you have installed. And since every BIOS is different, I have no way of telling you were to find that information either, sorry. Technology is terrible.

[Piotrhabera]

The first thing you should check if you haven't — it's not clear in the post — is whether the BIOS can recognise the memory. You should find out whatever way your motherboard expects you to enter the BIOS (you'll usually see a message like 'press DELETE to enter setup' while starting up, but every BIOS is different so it may well be one of the Fkeys or something), then look around to try to find out how much memory the BIOS thinks you have installed. And since every BIOS is different, I have no way of telling you were to find that information either, sorry. Technology is terrible.

Will commit to this method (as well as all future ones) tomorrow. I thank you for this exponentially quick piece of advice. I will let you know what the BIOS says.

[Maximum Spin]

If the BIOS doesn't recognise the RAM either, you should probably first be looking at physical problems, like making sure all the RAM is properly seated in the slots.
You should also consider taking out half the RAM, to see what happens, and moving it around the slots. This basically would let you see whether the problem is the RAM or the slots - if one stick, for example, isn't recognised no matter where it is, then that stick is probably the problem in some way, while if one slot causes whatever memory is in it to be missed, obviously you should be thinking about the slot instead of the RAM itself. It's possible that this would also provide useful information if the BIOS does recognise the RAM, but I'd be looking for software issues first in that case.

You may also want to acquire memtest86+, a free tool for testing memory.

[Piotrhabera]

BIOS detects roughly 8100 MB of memory. This means that BIOS can detect both RAM blocks, but not Windows. I suspect the motherboard starts to fail.

Post initial edition: I also managed to use the Windows Memory Repair tool as well - it did not show any errors. Most likely I am dealing with either hardware failure affecting RAM detection, motherboard failure or Windows being buggy.

Secondary post intial edition: Windows 10 Control Panel shows that 8 GB of RAM is installed, but only 3.95 GB is available. Website HowtoGeek has informed me that one of the possible causes is that 4 GB of RAM has been allocated to other hardware.

[wierd]

What version of windows is this?

[Piotrhabera]

What version of windows is this?

Windows 10 Pro, if I recall correctly.

[methylatedspirit]

Just to check if your hardware is taking up large amounts of RAM: Are you running an AMD APU? I know that those will take up a decent chunk of system RAM (2 GB by default, I think). State what CPU is in that system. It's in Control Panel > System and Security > System; the CPU in your system is listed in the Processor field. Also, check in Task Manager > Performance > Memory. There's the Hardware Reserved field that shows how much RAM has been allocated to other hardware. State that too.

[Piotrhabera]

Just to check if your hardware is taking up large amounts of RAM: Are you running an AMD APU? I know that those will take up a decent chunk of system RAM (2 GB by default, I think). State what CPU is in that system. It's in Control Panel > System and Security > System; the CPU in your system is listed in the Processor field. Also, check in Task Manager > Performance > Memory. There's the Hardware Reserved field that shows how much RAM has been allocated to other hardware. State that too.

Will state the exact specifications. If my memory is correct, I have an AMD 6-core processor that has an strong tendency to overheat.

[nenjin]

Has it always been like this? Did you build this PC yourself? Can you confirm your motherboard version and what memory sticks you bought? Are the sticks matched? Did you install them yourself?

[Piotrhabera]

Has it always been like this? Did you build this PC yourself? Can you confirm your motherboard version and what memory sticks you bought? Are the sticks matched? Did you install them yourself?

1: Not always.
2: No, my father repurposed it.
3: Cannot confirm, I haven't really checked into what exactly those RAM blocks were.
4: Probably.
5: No, I did not.

I eventually managed to ask my father to fix this problem for me. Turns out that the processor wasn't maintained for some while and that caused memory reduction.

[Reelya]

The first question when this arises should always be the exact version of Windows. 32 bit versions even of Windows 10 are constrained to address 4 GB.

https://www.compuram.de/blog/en/how-much-ram-can-be-addressed-under-the-current-32-bit-and-64-bit-operating-systems/