• Happy holidays, folks! Thanks to each and every one of you for being part of the Tom's Hardware community!

[SOLVED] Half my RAM unusable

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Dragoon30784

Dragoon30784

Aug 21, 2021
27
0
30
Good afternoon! I had a quick question concerning RAM on Windows 10.

I recently upgraded my RAM from 8 Gb to 32 Gb cuz why the hell not. My Mobo is recognizing that 32 Gb is installed, but in the System settings, under About, it tells me this:

Installed RAM - 32 Gb (15.9 Gb Usable)

I'm wondering why I can only use half my RAM? XMP is enabled, the RAM works with XMP, and I've gone through msconfig and set the max memory to 32 Gb.

My system specs are as follows:

Mobo: ASRock A320M-HDV (Soon to be upgraded to B450M Steel Legend)
CPU: Ryzen 3 2300X (Soon to be upgraded to Ryzen 5 5600X)
RAM: G Skills Ripjaw V 16 Gb x 2

I know that there are some processors - namely older ones - that for one reason or another can't work with higher amounts of RAM. I'm guessing this is one of them?
 
Solution
Colif
are they both from one set?

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the difference. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

new sticks can be bad so worth checking

win 10 more sensative to bad memory than say bios or other versions of win 10, so check it out.

Do you have latest bios on motherboard?
Sort by date Sort by votes
are they both from one set?

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the difference. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

new sticks can be bad so worth checking

win 10 more sensative to bad memory than say bios or other versions of win 10, so check it out.

Do you have latest bios on motherboard?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
They are both from one set, yes. And yes, the mobo has the latest BIOS.

I have no idea how to run a memtest... I'll have to look that up

Edit: just realized you put a link to it. Thank you for that
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thank you for that. ^^

I got the Memtest I needed, about to run the test.

Edit: at the rate this is going, I'll have the results sometime later this week >.>

Lol
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Dragoon30784 said:
Thank you for that. ^^

I got the Memtest I needed, about to run the test.

Edit: at the rate this is going, I'll have the results sometime later this week >.>

Lol
Click to expand...
Yep, it takes time for sure. I remember it taking 37 hours to check 256GB on my z420. 😉 Just have another device to use because you don't want to have to stop it and start over. I'll typically run it overnight so I won't have too much downtime.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well, one stick is checked out and the first pass on the second stick came out clean. No errors so far on either. I'll prob be back on late tonight to report on the second.

Assuming there's no errors in either, is it most likely the mobo or the processor that can't do the dual ram?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Interesting you got errors the first time around. I would clean the memory contact edge with a pink block eraser. Be careful not to knock off any ICs. Just carefully polish the contacts and then blow off all the eraser shavings. I've fixed some marginal ram doing this before.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oh no, i didn't get any errors at all. I'm sorry if my responses weren't very clear ^^"

What i meant was that this is the first time I've ever used this program, so i didn't know i could leave both sticks in. I wanted to be sure that both sticks were checked.

No errors were found in either of the sticks, which is good
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Dragoon30784 said:
Oh no, i didn't get any errors at all. I'm sorry if my responses weren't very clear ^^"

What i meant was that this is the first time I've ever used this program, so i didn't know i could leave both sticks in. I wanted to be sure that both sticks were checked.

No errors were found in either of the sticks, which is good
Click to expand...
Ah gotcha. Yes, very good you didn't get any errors--now try them together. 😀
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Main reason we get people to test sticks by themselves is because if you did get an error with 2 in, there is no way to tell which stick is to blame. Now you know they both work, testing both together is a way to test if its the motherboard that is to blame.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SamirD
Upvote 0 Downvote
No to both. I'm using a discrete card and there's no bent pins (that I can see. It'll be irrelevant soon as the new mobo comes in today, so I'll be changing mobo and CPU). I've tried going through the msconfig tool to make the max 3 gb but it didn't help
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Are you using slots two and four away from the CPU? Make sure to firmly press in each module. If they work fine individually and both recognized as 16GB, they should work together as 32GB.

Did you check BIOS to see if they are recognized as two 16GB modules? If they are then OS may not be addressing correctly.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom