Extremely frustrated.

[senjurio]

Before I begin... all drivers are up to date and most current bios is flashed, AND I am using win7 x64 home pro.
Sabertooth 990fx, 8gb corsair dominator(g.skill 8gb ripjaws for other test ram) Phenom II 1100T

Ok, I have been having the issue where I have 8 gigs of ram installed, but windows says 8 installed but only 3.96 usable. I thought at first that i had a faulty ram chip, so i replaced the dominator ram with 2 known good sticks of g.skill... same problem. RMA'd the motherboard because i thought that was the issue, same problem after new board. i have tried every configuration of the memory on the board, tried re-seating multiple times, same problem. set max memory in msconfig, same problem. I am at the end of my rope here, i have tried everything i can think of short of replacing the processor, which i am reluctant to spend the money on. Am I going in the right direction here or am i missing something?

PLEASE HELP, and thank you in advance!

 

[senjurio]

Well, thank you very much for you're help jaquinth, I commend you for you're patience. I found the problem after I got pissed off reinstalling windows with no changes. I removed the processor from the socket, and low and behold, a ******* bent pin. When I say bent, I mean bent all the way over and touching another pin. I tried to take pics with my cell phone, and will post them if you want me to, but they dont show how really bad it was. I had somewhat dismissed the possibility of this because I figured that if a pin was bent it wouldn't function at all... guess I was wrong. But anyway, thank you again for all you're help and time... I owe you one.

 

[senjurio]

Oh, and by the way, I successfully bent the pin back using a needle to get it facing upward again, and then used a pair of small tweezers to straighten all the kinks out, lol. All works fine now

 

[senjurio]

Well, I take that back. It's bouncing around now, sometimes I have 8gb, and sometimes I have 4... I just can't win, lol.

 

[senjurio]

NM, think that was just the result of a bad NB overclock.

 

[jaquith]

Since the CPU pin appears to be the issue then my assumption is it still needs some more help. If the pin is bent further down then when the tension is applied what 'appears' straight really isn't. So I'd remove the CPU again, apply the tension bar and see where it lines-up.

This is very unusual but not unheard of as I mentioned.

If after re-repair fails AND you fell it's best to RMA then ONLY do the Cross-Ship option!!! A regular RMA is 3-4 (closer to 4) week process.

 

[senjurio]

It was just a bad overclock, Had it running stable with all the right readings and ran memtest, did 6hrs of prime 95, etc. seems like she is all good to go.

was bent pretty bad, as you can make out in the picture i hope. anyway, thanks again for helping me troubleshoot all of this jaquinth. Like I said, hopefully I can repay the favor someday!

 

[senjurio]

Best answer selected by senjurio.

 

[jaquith]

Yep, I see the pin, (first) top of the bottom-right missing 2-pin area. The newer CPU's don't have pins, they're now in socket itself.

Good Luck!