New laptop with 6GB of RAM is only using 3GB

My coworker just got a new Windows 10 Dell laptop (64bit with an i5 and 6GB of RAM) and it's running pretty slow. I checked the System Information and it says "Installed Memory (RAM): 6.00GB (3.44GB usable)"


Within the Resource Monitor, the Hardware Reserved RAM is listed at 2624mb of RAM, In Use has 1900mb, Standby has 1500mb, and there is between 100mb and 0mb free.

The system and the processor are both 64-bit. The hard drive is a 500GB ST500LT012-1DG142, so it is 5400RPM.

I went through the msconfig > Boot > Advanced Options troubleshooting that some people find usccessful, but when I first got there, it was already unchecked with a value of zero, so that made me think it took that as no limit. I can check the box and it fills with 6144. I tried restarting after setting that and it rebooted with a value of 2440 or something. I unchecked it again, and rebooted and it's still lagging like it was at square one.


Is there any way to increase the usable RAM so that it can run a little faster? Is the video card or something else hogging more than it needs?

telepro21 said:

This could point to a bad RAM chip or one that is poorly seated in its socket. Use the built-in Windows Memory Diagnostic tool to check the RAM chips in your colleague's laptop. Once the machine boots up and you get logged in do the following:
Right-click on Start and then Left-click on Run. In the window that appears, type "mdsched" (without the quotes). Hit Enter and follow the instructions.

I popped open the bottom and the RAM appeared to be in there just fine. Took it out and put it back in just to be sure, but it still had the issue upon reboot.

I ran the mdsched and it completed without issue. I also ran a Dell Diags, but that didn't give me any leads either.

The really weird thing is that he got two of the same model (one of each kid). The one from the above screenshot shows 3.44GB of RAM usable, and the other says 4.94GB of RAM usable... How is that possible?

Don't know if i can explain it (haven't used it much) Try running RamMap. But might or likely others on here can

AddRAM said:

Ram Map just frees up standby memory.

????? unless you know a diffferent RamMap

Have you ever wondered exactly how Windows is assigning physical memory, how much file data is cached in RAM, or how much RAM is used by the kernel and device drivers? RAMMap makes answering those questions easy. RAMMap is an advanced physical memory usage analysis utility for Windows Vista and higher. It presents usage information in different ways on its several different tabs:

• Use Counts: usage summary by type and paging list
• Processes: process working set sizes
• Priority Summary: prioritized standby list sizes
• Physical Pages: per-page use for all physical memory
• Physical Ranges: physical memory addresses
• File Summary: file data in RAM by file
• File Details: individual physical pages by file

Use RAMMap to gain understanding of the way Windows manages memory, to analyze application memory usage, or to answer specific questions about how RAM is being allocated.

AddRAM said:

I meant I use it to free up standby memory.

Snow`s freezing up my last 2 brain cells

LOL np I get those mind farts too

As this is a new laptop the best option would be to return it for repair or exchange. Very likey this is a hardware problem. RAMMap won't be usefull here.