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Windows Server 2008 R2, not all memory usable

Hi there,

I have a following problem - I have a HP Proliant ML150 G6, with two Intel Xeon E5504 processors and 4 GB of RAM in it.

When I boot the system, everything is OK - BIOS shows the correct amount of RAM. But when I check the system properties in the operating system itself the installed memory is shown like this - 4.00GB (1.99GB usable). I have added an image showing the OS readings on memory.

I opened Resource Manager and found out that 2057MB of my RAM is Hardware reserved. I have added a picture for that also.

So, the question is - how do I see what hardware reserves the RAM, and is it possible to remove the hardware reservation (Is it safe - if not, I would have to buy extra RAM apparently)?

Thanks in advance!
memory-gluks.jpg
hardware-Reserved-memory.jpg

goyal_251

you are either using 32bit OS,so you are not able use all 4GB of your RAM, since some of that address space is reserved for hardware IO. you're stuck with 32 bits of hardware address space.

Refer below link .it may help

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx

Kaarliic

ASKER

Goyal,

Windows Server 2008 R2 only comes in 64-bit version. (See the 1st picture called memory-gluks.jpg ).

goyal_251

oh.. sorry .however in general such problem happend when either your chipset/processor/os is 32 bit.

Adrian Cantrill

As far as i know this server comes with a integrated video card which uses system memory for the GFX card - the memory that is being used is most likley being used by the GFX chip.. there is a way of changing it just checking now.

Adrian Cantrill

Aparently the amount of video RAM allocated can be changed in the bios on the server, maybe worth taking a look and allocating something less than 2GB.

Kaarliic

ASKER

Woolnoir,

Thank you! I will try that in about 5 hours, when the work in the office is done.

I will inform you about my results.

Thank you!

Adrian Cantrill

If it doesn't work let me know and ill look for other things, there are many possible reasons, but the fact that the memory is hardware reserved suggest that something on the system is sharing system memory - ill continue looking, if you can update us.

Kaarliic

ASKER

One more thing, I probably had to mention in the original post - I have HP P212/ZM (Zero Memory) RAID controller installed - maybe it is the one causing trouble?

It is hard for me to understand, why server's video card would want to reserve whooping 2gb of RAM..

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Adrian Cantrill

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Kaarliic

ASKER

The problem actually was simple - when I restarted the server, I noticed that BIOS only "sees" 2GB's of RAM and there was an error message which pointed out that memory pooling was done incorrectly.

I reseated memory modules and now everything is fine.