I hope someone's come across this one before, because it's a weird one! I've got a brand new HP Pavillion G6-2355sa with Windows 7 32-bit installed. The trouble is, with either 6GB or 2GB of ram installed, all I'm getting is 932MB available physical ram?! It makes the laptop a bit of a struggle to use as it's constantly paging to hdd. A picture paints a thousand words: Hope you can help
You need 64bit installed really on that machine. I'm guessing 1GB has been allocated over to the internal GPU so it's only showing as having 1GB RAM available & you've potentially got a dodgy 4GB stick. Does the correct amount of RAM show in the BIOS? Is it better with just the 4GB stick installed?
Thanks saspro, I've had a look into it. Either 2GB or 4GB stick on their own or both installed - it's exactly the same. I have to run 32-bit unfortunately, as there's a vpn app and antivirus that won't install otherwise and these have to exist as per policy. The certificate server was recently upgraded to dish out Win7 keys! I've just updated the bios, exactly the same result *sigh* It's very extremely limited. What it does show is the correct ram size. I agree that hardware is reserving the ram, but there's no settings in bios for, say the graphics ram or suchlike. It seems strange that it would reserve on the 2GB stick about 1.1GB, but then with 6GB installed, it reserves 5.1GB?! I know it should only see about 3.5GB with it being 32-bit... The built-in UEFI quick ram test just passed on the 4GB stick.
Tap away at f10 as you start the notebook and check in the bios if 6Gb of Ram is showing here. If it is, but just not showing in Windows, check the following after windows has loaded. Hold down the Windows key and press R. Into the Run Box type msconfig and hit enter. In the System Configuration window, click the Boot tab and then click Advanced Options. If there is a tick in the box next to 'Maximum Memory', click to remove it, click OK and click Apply on the System Configuration window. Restart the notebook
Aye, I've tried that, no success BIOS shows the correct amount, either 2, 4 or 6 of whichever ram I've installed. I've tried them in different slots. I've got another screenshot which may help explain things. This is with 4GB installed. 6GB or 2GB installed, the figures alter but I still only get 932MB available.
You know that a 32bit processor cant support more than 4GB of RAM btw? (not sure about OS if you have a 64bit processor) I know the issues occurs with a 4GB but just so you aware.
Aye, I've tried a BIOS reset (i.e. Load Default) - still the same. I agree it's a memory mapping failure but there are no options in the bios for this. No VM's. adzc1987 - A 32-bit OS with 4GB should see around 3.5GB. I could understand if it was a little less, due to Intel GPU. There's not a lot of hardware to BE mapped to memory tbh. It really sounds like a glitch in the bios, which I've updated to try and fix the issue, to no avail. Ah well, it's going to be returned and/or swapped. Where are my manners - thanks to all who looked and to those above Strange one indeed. I've already installed Win7x86 on a few other laptops and desktops (all HP) with nothing like this happening. I only noticed something was up after installing all the updates, Office, apps, etc.. then running Outlook for the first time to create a mail profile was a little sluggish so I had a look at the ram usage and it went downhill from there..!
Could you try a linux live CD / memory stick to see what it can see. Run as live and dont install. You could also run a memory check as this is also included on the live cd menu options. I recommend Ubuntu only becuase I use it.
Have you tried a fresh install? Maybe something fcuk'd up on the original install and caused that issue
I'd probably suggest it could address the entire amount of ram. That's the weird thing - Win7 definately sees all the ram, it's just how it allocates it. For some reason it hogs a load for hardware and leaves me with barely anything usable. Good thought though. Aye, I've tried a second install. Still the same :/
Looks like you need to send it back then. Not much help I'd admit but it has to be a faulty board or similar
Just as a last resort, I left it installing XP last off, perhaps see what the ram usage is like. Support from HP was okay, but ultimately fruitless. Basically the chap deduced that the hardware isn't compatible with 7 as they don't offer drivers to download for it directly from their website. The fact I fairly easily found them all by Ven and Dev numbers in device manager and everything was running a-ok meant nothing. There must be a hotfix they've installed with the install of Win8 that was pre-installed on it. The other main reason I choose HP is that they offer rollback installs to Win7 - I thought it was on all their hardware.. obviously not this laptop!
