Resolved Usable memory 2.93

My laptop Dell Inspiron 14iR is running Widows 10, 32-bit. It had 4 GB DDR3 RAM (2x2). I replaced one of the 2MB memory card with one of 4GB but did not notice any improvement. When I check memory status I see:
Installed Memory (RAM): 6.00GB (2.93 GB usable). In Resource Monitor, I see more than 3MB as “Hardware Reserved”. What is all this for? Can I reduce it?
I put back the original 2GB card and the status is
Installed Memory (RAM): 4.00GB (2.93 GB usable)
Is my laptop limited to "use" only 2.93MB?

 

Just came across this info - Windows 10 32-but supports maximum 4GB RAM.

 

This is actually very old news. 32-bit operating systems have always been limited to 4GB long before W10 came about. And there has always been less than the full 4GB usable because of how hardware mapping is done in RAM with 32-bit operating systems.

Typically you end up with ~3.2GB usable but with notebooks in particular, you often end up with less because notebooks tend to use integrated graphics. That is, they don't have a separate graphics card with dedicated RAM on the card. Instead, the graphics processor unit (GPU) is mounted on the motherboard and a large chunk of system RAM then gets stolen... err... "shared" for the GPU for graphics processing. With a PC using integrated graphics, you can add a graphics card and free up that shared RAM. But notebooks generally don't support adding a graphics card.

You can install 64-bit Windows 10 and then have the full 4GB installed available and you will see a nice performance boost - a significant boost with some tasks. You can then also add more RAM or replace your existing RAM with larger RAM sticks, IF your particular model notebook supports it.