Resource Monitor says I have 18 GB installed memory

[Insomniac34]

Hey all. I just got Windows 7 Pro 64-bit a couple weeks ago and it's been terrific so far. However, there's one thing that has annoyed me quite a bit that I can't seem to figure out. When I look at the Resource Monitor, I'm told that I have 18+ GB of installed memory on my computer. This is obviously not correct, however, since I only have two 2GB sticks of DDR2 installed. Here are some pics showing the issue:

I have no clue why Windows is saying that there's 14 GB of hardware reserved memory. Seems to be a faulty reading of some kind, and I'm wondering if there's any way to go about correcting this or finding out the root of the problem. If I can't get it fixed, it's not a big deal since my performance is terrific. Just something that bugs me a little and I'd like to know what's causing the incorrect reading.

Thanks to anyone who can help me out, it's much appreciated.

 

[logicearth]

Windows gets its reading from the BIOS and the BIOS sets the hardware reserved. So that is where I would look. For the time being might just live it, cause it sees and is using all 4 GBs. So whatever is going on is not affecting that.

 

[Insomniac34]

Thanks for the quick reply. I should note that the BIOS correctly says there's 4 GB of ram on the startup screen. I've also tried updating to the most recent BIOS but that didn't help out. If anyone can point me to a spot in the BIOS that might allow me solve this issue, I'd be thankful. But like you said logicearth, I have no problem living with this if there's no immediate solution. It doesn't impact my performance at all from what I can tell, and that's the most important thing.

 

[Night Hawk]

Welcome to the Seven Forums! Insomniac34

I'm afraid that's more of a Windows glitch rather then anything to do with the bios if you notice the amount of cached memory pointing to how is taken off of the top of the 4gb you do have installed. For some reason the calculation part of that is way off with something not be read correctly by Windows.

You could try running the system file checker as one option to see if that will find a fault with a system file and replace it. Simply type "sfc /scannow" in at the Start>Run command line while having the 7 dvd in the drive. That will take a few minutes to verify things and replace any found damaged or missing.

The other likely cause may be a registry error seen while the installation was taking place. Since this is a recent copy of 7 installed only a few weeks ago you may end wanting another clean install if you do end up running into other problems as you go along. First try the system tool to see if that helps any.

 

[Insomniac34]

Just ran the system file checker as you suggested Night Hawk, and no integrity violations were found. I probably won't be doing a re-installation any time soon, so I'll just deal with it for now and hope there aren't any issues down the road (and I doubt there will be).

 

[Dom]

When you installed Windows 7, did you do an 'Upgrade install' or a 'Clean install'? The upgrade option has been known to cause problems, whereas the clean install comes out making the PC a lot more responsive, and less problems that the upgrade install would have had.
Another thought is that the pagefile.sys might have something to do with this. But pagefiling is out of my experience, I would leave that to other experts around this forum

 

[Pusspa]

i think it is adding your pagefile to the total.

 

[Lasy B]

Just ran the system file checker as you suggested Night Hawk, and no integrity violations were found. I probably won't be doing a re-installation any time soon, so I'll just deal with it for now and hope there aren't any issues down the road (and I doubt there will be).

Plus it looks Damned Impressive!!

 

[karlsnooks]

Thanks for the quick reply. I should note that the BIOS correctly says there's 4 GB of ram on the startup screen. I've also tried updating to the most recent BIOS but that didn't help out. If anyone can point me to a spot in the BIOS that might allow me solve this issue, I'd be thankful. But like you said logicearth, I have no problem living with this if there's no immediate solution. It doesn't impact my performance at all from what I can tell, and that's the most important thing.

What does Speccy report?

What does CPU-Z report?

​

SPECCY- System Information Tool
http://www.piriform.com/speccy

FREE. Operating System, CPU and Temp, Ram, Motherboard, Graphics, Hard Drives, Optical Drives, Audio, Peripherals, Network info.
Simply put—this is the best and it’s free!

​

CPU-Z CPU-Z
CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

[FONT=&quot]Gathers info on your:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]CPU[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]Name and number.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Core stepping and process.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Package.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Core voltage.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Internal and external clocks, clock multiplier.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Supported instruction sets.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Cache information.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Mainboard[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]Vendor, model and revision.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]BIOS model and date.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Chipset (northbridge and southbridge) and sensor.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Graphic interface.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Memory[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]Frequency and timings.[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Module(s) specification using SPD (Serial Presence Detect) : vendor, serial number, timings table.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]System[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]Windows and DirectX version.[/FONT]

 

[Night Hawk]

Dom asked a good question there about which method saw 7 installed. The strongest indication of a bad upgrade over type leading to odd problems like this is the most likely explaination. Either that or simply a bad install of Windows even using the clean install method where something never went on fully would be the most likely causes.

I strongly suspect that this will turn out to be a minor error in the registry however. The value that calculates the total seems to be off a bit in order to be seeing 18gb with only 4gb of physical memory installed. It seems to be tallying hardware mapping multiple times for seeing the 14+gb cached memory and then adding the other items to that in order to reach the 18gb total. The others seem to be the normal figures you would expect to see.

 

[bigg123]

Looks dam impressive. Try reinstalling windows or get a new mobo.

 

[Insomniac34]

Sorry for taking a couple days to respond, hadn't been around much. To answer your questions:

When you installed Windows 7, did you do an 'Upgrade install' or a 'Clean install'? The upgrade option has been known to cause problems, whereas the clean install comes out making the PC a lot more responsive, and less problems that the upgrade install would have had.

It was a clean install. I used a digitally downloaded copy that was purchased through that program where college students get Windows 7 Pro for $29.99.

What does Speccy report?

What does CPU-Z report?

Both Speccy and CPU-Z say 4 GB.

i think it is adding your pagefile to the total.

To check, I tried setting my pagefile to 0 MB. Still said there was 18 GB.

I strongly suspect that this will turn out to be a minor error in the registry however. The value that calculates the total seems to be off a bit in order to be seeing 18gb with only 4gb of physical memory installed. It seems to be tallying hardware mapping multiple times for seeing the 14+gb cached memory and then adding the other items to that in order to reach the 18gb total. The others seem to be the normal figures you would expect to see.

Yeah, that sounds like the only reasonable explanation from what I can tell. As I mentioned earlier, it seems to be having absolutely no effect on my performance one way or the other. So while I'm a little curious as to the exact cause, it's nothing I'm going to worry about.

Looks dam impressive. Try reinstalling windows or get a new mobo.

Reinstalling could probably fix it, but I don't plan on going through the procedure because of such a minor issue. It took me long enough to get everything just the way I like it on here

 

[Night Hawk]

Well if you have a spare drive to store an image of the drive or simply can use the Windows Easy Transfer tool for a good backup of files and settings 7 can be reinstalled fresh at some point. I would do that anyways in the event some other problem suddenly appears in case you did see a bad install the first time around.

Meanwhile if you haven't already burned the image to disk or created a usb install key that would be a smart move as well. It does point at a registry error of some type however. See how things go for now.