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So, the other day I woke up and started to use my desktop. My primary OS is Mint 17.2 with the Cinnamon desktop, but I also have Windows 7. It was acting much slower then before, and I could hear the hard drive working over time. This went on for a day or so before I decided it was time to look at the system monitor. To my surprise, half of my RAM was missing! My computer is only seeing 4 GB as opposed to my usual 8. I have tried to reseat the ram in the sockets, switching all 4 sticks around, resetting the BIOS to default settings, nothing. The BIOS itself only sees 4GB, but when I loaded CPUZ in Windows, it could see all 4 sticks which baffles me. I am guessing my motherboard is dying a slow and painful death as I have also been having issues with my Geforce 550 Ti in Linux, but it works fine in another computer and the Radeon 5450 which came with the computer works fine in moth windows and Linux. I have had a work laptop with only 4GB of ram and it works fine for the most part.

I don't have money for a new system so I will have to live with what I have for a few more months. Do you think that reinstalling the operating systems will result in better performance sense it was installed with 8GB?

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    "Do you think that reinstalling the operating systems will result in better performance sense it was installed with 8GB?" - No; You machine is not even detecting all your modules your problem isn't a software problem it is a hardware problem.
    – Ramhound
    Nov 2, 2015 at 16:49
  • As a diagnostic, remove all of the RAM, reinstall one stick, and check that the system detects it. If it does, test that stick in each of the remaining slots. Then check each remaining stick to verify that each stick is good. If all sticks and all slots check out, we can explore other explanations. Can you verify that the problem is in both Windows and Linux? Can we assume both are 64 bit OSs?
    – fixer1234
    Nov 2, 2015 at 19:15

1 Answer 1

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No. Do not re-install the operating systems. The point of installing an operating system is to get the operating system's data onto the storage device (the "disk"), and to make sure that the operating system's startup sequence can start running the operating system (during the process of "booting").

A common effect is to re-initialize many configuration variables. However, that is almost always an unideal way to do things, just because it is less efficient. (It might, however, be easier.)

Regarding memory, in general, operating systems tend to detect how much RAM is being used. The most that you're likely to benefit from is adjusting the size of your swap (a.k.a. "page file"). Even that might not be needed at all.

Having your operating system use RAM that the BIOS does not detect is scary. That is not how things are supposed to work. That indicates a problem. I really don't like problems with memory, since memory gets accessed when doing just about anything, including writing data to a disk. I like my data to be accurate. I wouldn't comfortably use the computer until things make sense. By "things make sense", I mean that the BIOS detects all of the RAM, or at least that the operating system isn't using RAM that the BIOS doesn't detect.

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