6gb of ram but task manager says 4?

[jarlmaster]

As the title says I have 6gb of ram but the task manager says I only have 4gb available. My computer says I have 6gb. I ran memtest to see if I got any errors and I didn't. In addition, memtest says I have 4gb available. I am really confused by this. I tried reseating the dimms and that made no difference.

Should I just go ahead and get new ram to throw in? I don't really mind spending the money but I'd prefer not to have to if there's a solution you guys have in mind.

 

[setishock]

A 32bit system will not see above 4 gigs of ram.

 

[jarlmaster]

A 32bit system will not see above 4 gigs of ram.

I have a 64bit system though

 

[BK_123]

Do you have an integrated or dedicated GPU? If you have an integrated GPU Windows will take some of ram and use it for that.

 

[Celery]

You are looking under the performance tab of the task manager? If the total says 6xxx then you have it all.

What did it say under Cached? Available? Free?

 

[jarlmaster]

You are looking under the performance tab of the task manager? If the total says 6xxx then you have it all.

What did it say under Cached? Available? Free?

Total-4093
Cached- 520
Free- 1600

I take this to mean its only using 4gb? So that means one of my three 2gb dimms is dead?

These numbers were taken at idle, with steam downloading in the background and a few tabs in firefox open. Sometimes memory usage goes over 3 gb. Vista is a memory hog I know so that explains that but I notice that memory usage is over 4gb in games sometimes and my system may be hanging because of that.

To answer BK I have a dedicated gpu. I've never had issues like this. It's strange.

 

[BK_123]

When go to control panel > system and security > system how much ram does it say is usable?

 

[jarlmaster]

It says 6gb

 

[cb600fshornet]

Try opening msconfig (typing it in the search in the start menu), open the "Boot" tab, then click "Advanced Options," is the "Maximum Memory" tickbox ticked?

Can you please attach screenshots of your task manager and also "System" in your control panel?

 

[Celery]

That gets interesting. You said you have a dedicated video card so go to your BIOS and turn off the integrated video.