System reconizes but will not access full amount of RAM

[PHilton]

Have a HP 100-B all-in-one that came with 4GB RAM. Added card w/ another 4GB RAM. Control/System says 8GB recognized but only 2.6GB available. How do I correct this? (Running Win-7 Pro 32-bit)

 

[Megahertz07]

Windows 32bits can only deal 3.2 G. When you have 4 G, about 800 M is used by graphics and the remain by Windows.
If you have and want to use more ram you need to have an 64 bits OS . You have to do a clean install.

 

[LMiller7]

A 32 bit OS has a physical address space limited to 4 GB and all memory above that will be ignored, even if the hardware supports more. This is a licensing limitation and enforced by the kernel. But not all of that 4 GB can be used to address RAM as a significant portion must be used by memory mapped hardware which must have priority. Usually about 3-3.5 GB is available with 3.2 being typical. But if system RAM is used for graphics, very common in laptops and all-in-one systems, this value will be further reduced. There may be an option in the BIOS to reduce video memory memory but I rather doubt it.

 

[Digerati]

Agreed. If you want to see and use the full 4GB of your 4GB, and the other 4GB of RAM above that, you must use a 64-bit operating system.