System Properties Not Showing Usable Ram

David, very brilliant idea. 3000 didn't work but 2970 is the largest value that forced "usable" to indeed display. That makes you a genius. You certainly describe what Microsoft does not (or will not or cares not to) for unknown reasons - and they should as this will and does cause people to lament and seek precision of understanding. They should either always show something or never show anything or explain why they do choose to do both. Anything else is, in a word, sad.

Again, thank you for your suggestion.

I tried many values (feeling stupid and foolish doing so but knowing there was no other way to glean additional breadcrumbs of knowledge) and recorded what was said in System Properties and what was said by Resource Monitor for Hardware (I refer to this as "ResMonHW"). Note the BIOS always said:

BIOS always says 3072 MB physical RAM
BIOS always says 3027 MB available (matching System Resource Mon claim for 45GB needed by hardware).
BIOS always says Video RAM uses 32MB.

The first two lines shown for ResMonHW values are revealing since they do not trend as the remaining trials do. We can all I'm sure draw interesting conclusions from the givens -- I defer to others and choose to publish the data expediently. I am reminded that there is arbitrariness to mucking with the msconfig MaxMemory value -- we simply guess how it behaves because it's exact behavior is not properly documented. We have to guess here as well.

We shouldn't even need to touch this msconfig value but we are forced to do so when we are puzzled about the value for 'usable' in System Properties (which Microsoft nicely explains all the possibilities which can cause that) or in a few anal cases like mine, are puzzled why it sometimes doesn't even show at all (forced by a client to hand them off a PC stating a value they can vet -- they have zero interest in hearing the juju about how memory management works, how hardware needs RAM, etc.). Like Cuba Gooding Jr, they say "Show me the Usable".

I'd like to keep this open until someone can put a nail in this coffin. Maybe I'll stir Mark Russinovich's Inbox. You will note I never offered to run Procmon and filter and draw conclusions from that when Mark has source code and can tell us all in the blink of an eye. Procmon has become intractable and an art form -- even viruses perform 100s of thousands of 'fake' operations to files and the registry to keep good guys busy and render useful for only certain things (it remains amazing nevertheless).

MSMAX SystemProperties ............ Pct .. ResMonHW(MB)
3072 3.00GB ------------- 3072/3072=100.0 45
3000 3.00GB ------------- 3000/3072= 97.6 73
2976 3.00GB ------------- 2976/3072= 96.88 97
2974 3.00GB ------------- 2974/3072= 96.80 99
2972 3.00GB ------------- 2972/3072= 96.74 101
2970 3.00GB (2.90 usable) 2970/3072= 96.67 103
2950 3.00GB (2.88 usable) 2946/3072= 96.02 123
2948 3.00GB (2.88 usable) 2948/3072= 95.96 125
2946 3.00GB (2.88 usable) 2946/3072= 95.89 127
2944 3.00GB (2.87 usable) 2944/3072= 95.83 129
2940 3.00GB (2.87 usable) 2940/3072= 95.70 133

Regards,

Harry

You're welcome, and glad to hear this helps.

I can't comment on why MS doesn't always show the Usable amount on the System Properties.
If you do ask Mark Russinovich and get an answer, post back, would be interesting.

I've never heard of a need to see this value before, so i never paid much attention to it other than on systems where it is significantly less than installed.
Then I try to tweak bios to get more usable RAM.

I don't know why the company requires seeing the Usable RAM, but with the testing you did, I think it shows a problem with their certification requirements.
It's up to you if you want to try and explain it to them, so they would understand if Usable isn't displayed it means "most" RAM is usable.

Good job testing with different values and posting your results

hstein said:

David, very brilliant idea. 3000 didn't work but 2970 is the largest value that forced "usable" to indeed display. That makes you a genius. You certainly describe what Microsoft does not (or will not or cares not to) for unknown reasons - and they should as this will and does cause people to lament and seek precision of understanding. They should either always show something or never show anything or explain why they do choose to do both. Anything else is, in a word, sad.

Again, thank you for your suggestion.

I tried many values (feeling stupid and foolish doing so but knowing there was no other way to glean additional breadcrumbs of knowledge) and recorded what was said in System Properties and what was said by Resource Monitor for Hardware (I refer to this as "ResMonHW"). Note the BIOS always said:

BIOS always says 3072 MB physical RAM
BIOS always says 3027 MB available (matching System Resource Mon claim for 45GB needed by hardware).
BIOS always says Video RAM uses 32MB.

The first two lines shown for ResMonHW values are revealing since they do not trend as the remaining trials do. We can all I'm sure draw interesting conclusions from the givens -- I defer to others and choose to publish the data expediently. I am reminded that there is arbitrariness to mucking with the msconfig MaxMemory value -- we simply guess how it behaves because it's exact behavior is not properly documented. We have to guess here as well.

We shouldn't even need to touch this msconfig value but we are forced to do so when we are puzzled about the value for 'usable' in System Properties (which Microsoft nicely explains all the possibilities which can cause that) or in a few anal cases like mine, are puzzled why it sometimes doesn't even show at all (forced by a client to hand them off a PC stating a value they can vet -- they have zero interest in hearing the juju about how memory management works, how hardware needs RAM, etc.). Like Cuba Gooding Jr, they say "Show me the Usable".

I'd like to keep this open until someone can put a nail in this coffin. Maybe I'll stir Mark Russinovich's Inbox. You will note I never offered to run Procmon and filter and draw conclusions from that when Mark has source code and can tell us all in the blink of an eye. Procmon has become intractable and an art form -- even viruses perform 100s of thousands of 'fake' operations to files and the registry to keep good guys busy and render useful for only certain things (it remains amazing nevertheless).

MSMAX SystemProperties ............ Pct .. ResMonHW(MB)
3072 3.00GB ------------- 3072/3072=100.0 45
3000 3.00GB ------------- 3000/3072= 97.6 73
2976 3.00GB ------------- 2976/3072= 96.88 97
2974 3.00GB ------------- 2974/3072= 96.80 99
2972 3.00GB ------------- 2972/3072= 96.74 101
2970 3.00GB (2.90 usable) 2970/3072= 96.67 103
2950 3.00GB (2.88 usable) 2946/3072= 96.02 123
2948 3.00GB (2.88 usable) 2948/3072= 95.96 125
2946 3.00GB (2.88 usable) 2946/3072= 95.89 127
2944 3.00GB (2.87 usable) 2944/3072= 95.83 129
2940 3.00GB (2.87 usable) 2940/3072= 95.70 133

Regards,

Harry

This all seems like a lot of work for little purpose.
I expect that the memory is displayed as it is so as not to bother non technical users (the large majority) with minor differences they neither understand nor care about. I find it hard to disagree. Anyone needing to know usable memory can obtain this information more accurately from either Task Manager or Resource Monitor.

This all seems like a lot of work for little purpose.

I think the answer to that is how important is it to the OP that the PC passes the Company Certification process.

i.e.
If I needed to tweak my PC to get a job to suit their Certification, that's important ...
If I needed to tweak PCs to sell PCs to the "company" to suit their Certification, that's important ...

From post #1

I have a company that requires seeing this "usable" RAM and I can't Google anything anywhere how to make this show up or what prevents it from showing up or how to make a WMI call to make it show up.

Isn't that what we're trying to do, answer that question for help on how to show Usable RAM ... ?

I have no doubt that the information is important. But the best way to obtain it is by using Task Manager or Resource Monitor. Use the right tool for the job.

I agree with you, but I'm not sure the OP has any control over what tool(s) are used.
Quote from post #11

We shouldn't even need to touch this msconfig value but we are forced to do so when we are puzzled about the value for 'usable' in System Properties (which Microsoft nicely explains all the possibilities which can cause that) or in a few anal cases like mine, are puzzled why it sometimes doesn't even show at all (forced by a client to hand them off a PC stating a value they can vet -- they have zero interest in hearing the juju about how memory management works, how hardware needs RAM, etc.). Like Cuba Gooding Jr, they say "Show me the Usable".

If the "customer" has certification requirements that are "faulty", should hstein do what is possible to meet certification
, or tell the customer "nope, goodbye" ?

You, I, hstein, and anyone else may agree that using different tools is the best/right thing to do ...
But if the Customer is not willing or capable of using different tools, what to do ???