Envy 15 - 8GB installed, but only 4GB visible?

Just got my new Envy 15 with 8GB of RAM, but the 64bit Windows 7 only sees 4GB in computer properties. It displays:

Installed memory (RAM): 8.00 GB (3.99 GB usable)

Called HP support, they are escalating this to hardware support. BIOS displays that 8GB are installed.

Has anyone experienced the same issue? Any suggestions?

By the way my system came with F18 BIOS which is not yet on the HP web site. HP support had my update to the F17 BIOS but that did not fix the problem.

Appreciate any help on this...

 

Does the bios or post screen show the full 8gb ?? , if not what chipset do you have.

 

The BIOS shows full 8 GB of RAM. This is a brand new i7-820QM system with 8GB installed. Just recieved it this morning and obviously dissapointed with this problem. HP tech support called me back and asked to run a memory test and do a Windows update. In the process of doing it now...

 

Highly unlikely to be the problem but worth a check, launch the system config tool, Windows Key+R, type in msconfig, go to the boot tab and clicked advanced options, make sure the maximum memory box is not ticked.

 

Yep, already did that this morning with HP support on the line... did not resolve the problem...

 

Memtest86+ is the best memory test to run.

http://www.memtest.org/

 

Ran the memory tests - passed...
Did Windows Update with all the latest...

Same problem...

Resource Monitor (memory tab) is reporting that "4106 MB Hardware Reserved". This is strange.

HP has escalated to the engineering team and they should call me on Monday.

Any other thoughts from the gurus on this forum?

 

Well, the only things I can think of are:

1. You checked to make sure its got an i7 and not an i5 proc correct?

2. This seems unlikely but if you go to computer and then click on system info it does say you have x64 version of Win7 installed.

The only reason I mention "2" is because if somehow you ended up with the 32 bit version of Win7 it can only access 4 gig's but such a screwup seems really unlikely. It does seem odd task manger is saying 4106 MB is reserved. Someones using mine so I can't check task manager but with my desktop when I check it shows no memory hardware reserved.

 

does the driver for the video card allow you to adjust how much ram it takes?

 

Yes, I got the i7 and yes I am running Windows 7 64-bit...

 

I have ATI HD 5830 card on this system. I am running Catalyst Control Center and it shows 1 GB on board memory. It should not take any system RAM and I am not seeing any way to adjust the RAM or to see if it uses any system RAM...

 

I have the exact same issue with my Envy 15 2nd gen - i7/5830. I did a fresh install of Win 7 Pro x64, but installed the extra RAM afterwords. I too am running out of ideas...

 

How much memory does cpu-z see?

 

Figured it was a long shot but its one of those got to check everything type deals.

 

Check Max Memory is not checked in msconfig

 

Done a long time ago.

 

Any loaders installed? If not then wait for HP reply.

 

If you are referring to boot-loaders for Windows 7, the answer is no. New OEM copy and license used.

 

Have you thought about doing a fresh os install , the os currently installed will most likely have been a ghost of a 4gb system hdd that are used on all systems.

If you have a spare hdd , do a fresh install on it and see what happens , that way you can keep your stock hdd untouched.

 

I thought about it, however I've never ever had to do a fresh install when upgrading ram during the last 10 years or so. But ofc, it just might be the solution...

 

CPU-z shows 8GB (8192 MB), tried everything except a fresh install, which I am not sure will help, since the BIOS is also seeing all 8GB installed...

Waiting for the HP engineering team to respond on Monday...

 

Hope you'll share the response here - I live in Sweden and HP's consumer support is completely useless. Thinking of trying to use corporate HP support team available at work, but not sure if they are interested in this.

 

Sure will - stay tuned...

I also posted this problem at the HP support forum:

http://h20435.www2.hp.com/t5/HP-Envy-Notebooks/Envy-15-8GB-installed-but-only-4GB-visible/td-p/53569

 

Nice, hope that this will be solved with out to much hassle...

 

Any response from HP regarding this issue?

 

Might be Windows thing. There are some similar cases out there...

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...e/thread/b9b0fea2-8ef6-4007-bc2c-9c74905d5575

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...e/thread/06eb5bcd-c664-4d03-9ca4-41dae48668f6

http://windows.bigresource.com/Win7-Win-7-Ultimate-Retail-64Bit-issues-with-8GB-of-RAM-Ajf5thtN.html

 

Not yet, told me today that engineering is working on it... will post as soon as I get an answer from HP...

 

Problem fixed (no thanks to HP, still waiting for their engineering team to respond).

I just opened up the RAM compartment, removed the 2 RAM sticks, swiched them around, reseated, closed everything, fired up the system and PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

I now have all 8GB of RAM visible in Windows. Everything is working fine for now!!!

 

Memory slots in laptops tend to behave weird, for example with old SDRAM, laptops that used 100MHz memory would not work with 133MHz memory even though the 133 modules had configurations for 100MHz too in their SPD. It seems that this is still the case nowadays.

Anyway, glad you got it sorted.

 

Now I wonder what HP's engineering team has to say.

 

Seems the video card shares the system cache. so thats why its showing up like that. The Graphics Memory Capacity: 3.99 GB.