Problem:

• You have a laptop with 48 GB of RAM.
• Your computer becomes slow when the used RAM exceeds 16 GB.
• You want to find out what causes the issue.

Solution:

1. Open  PowerShell as an administrator.
2. Execute the command below.

   Get-CimInstance Win32_PhysicalMemory | Format-Table BankLabel, Capacity, Manufacturer, Speed, PartNumber

3. You may see that you have two RAM modules, and their sizes are different, as shown below.

   BankLabel    Capacity Manufacturer Speed PartNumber
   ---------    -------- ------------ ----- ----------
   BANK 0    17179869184 SK Hynix      3200 H***********N-XN
   BANK 2    34359738368 SK Hynix      3200 H***********N-XN

4. If this is true, your RAM is using Flex mode.
5. Check your DDR type with the command below.

   Get-CimInstance Win32_PhysicalMemory | Select-Object Manufacturer, PartNumber, Speed, MemoryType, SMBIOSMemoryType

6. If you see 26, you have DDR4;
   if 24, you have DDR3;
   if 34, you have DDR5.
7. Check your DDR type with the command below.

   winsat mem

8. If your measured speed is around 28,000 MB/s, it means an effective bandwidth of about 1.1 channels — exactly what Flex Mode produces (one full channel, one partial).
9. Option 1: Keep your RAM modules as is. 28,000 MB/s is sufficient for office and coding tasks.
10. Option 2: Replace your RAM modules with two 16 GB or two 32 GB modules of the same size to enable full dual-channel operation and achieve up to 40% better performance in memory-intensive tasks such as running virtual machines, heavy multitasking, or video editing.