Windows only sees 8GB but CPUZ sees 12GB

Hi all,

I've recently upgraded to w10 but weirdly now windows only sees 8GB. When I had w8 it saw all 12GB of ram but now only 8GB.

I've checked CPUZ and it can see the 12GB fine but windows still only sees 8GB (and not '8GB usable', it actually only sees 8GB).





I've already looked to see if I should update motherboard BIOS but it's an Asus Rampage Extreme III and the last BIOS was released in 2011 (I have that one installed).

Does anyone have any idea what I should do?

Thanks for your time!

I've recently upgraded to w10 but weirdly now windows only sees 8GB. When I had w8 it saw all 12GB of ram but now only 8GB.
I've checked CPUZ and it can see the 12GB fine but windows still only sees 8GB (and not '8GB usable', it actually only sees 8GB).

I've already looked to see if I should update motherboard BIOS but it's an Asus Rampage Extreme III and the last BIOS was released in 2011 (I have that one installed).

Speccy uses GPUz so that would probably tell you the same thing.

See what System Information tells you about the memory (Run msinfo32.exe).

It could be a bug in the way System reports the memory or it could be a memory configuration issue.

Make sure the memory is matched and seated per the above Intel page.

Board reference: ROG | RAMPAGE III EXTREME | ASUS Global

In Search, type "msconfig" and hit enter. In the dialog that opens, choose the Boot tab, then click Advanced Options, and see if the Maximum Memory checkbox is ticked. If so, untick it then click Make all boot settings permanent and click ok and reboot.

If that's not the problem, then not sure what it would be.

Thanks for the reply Mystere.

I had a look at those settings and it was unticked, I ticked it just to have a look at how high I could set it but it's capped at 8192MB so it still seems like Windows can only see 8GB.

Does anyone know how CPUZ gets its information? I assumed it would be through some Windows API and so how can it see 12GB but Windows only sees 8GB?

Thanks.

I would submit this in the Windows Feedback. It may be a problem with Windows 10.

Have you checked your bios? Some BIOS's have a setting which reserves memory for the video card. Not sure if 4GB can explain that, but there might be something else there.

• If you have a integrated/onboard graphics chipon your motherboard and are using a graphics cardinstead, then double check your BIOS settings to make sure that you do not have any memory allocated to the integrated/onboard graphics chip (ex:hardware reserved) so that it will be used by Windows instead.
• If you are using a integrated/onboard graphics chipon your motherboard to display your monitor from, then part of your memory (RAM) will be allocated to it as set in the BIOS.
• Double check to see if you have a memory mappingoption in your BIOS settings. If you do, enable it.

Dump the boot code (elevated command prompt - bcdedit) to see if any memory settings are defined (PAE, NX, 4GT)

This might have shown up in the msconfig or perhaps not.

I'd still like to see what msinfo32 reports

Thanks for the reply Mystere.

I had a look at those settings and it was unticked, I ticked it just to have a look at how high I could set it but it's capped at 8192MB so it still seems like Windows can only see 8GB.

Does anyone know how CPUZ gets its information? I assumed it would be through some Windows API and so how can it see 12GB but Windows only sees 8GB?

Thanks.

I think it highly likely that Windows and CPUZ are using different methods.

CPUZ is obtaining it's information from the hardware. The purpose is to obtain memory size and specifications. But note that CPUZ has no way of knowing that all memory modules are fully compatible or usable.

Windows has no interest in memory technical specifications, only in how much memory is available for use. This is likely obtained from the BIOS during bootup by means of a simple memory test. This is destructive to memory contents so cannot be done while Windows is running. This is not a fully reliable memory test, just a quick test to see what is present.


As different methods are used the results can differ if there are memory issues, not necessarily bad memory.