Question Only 2GB RAM usable out of 16GB, remaining 14GB is "Hardware Reserved" ?

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Cstyle12

Aug 14, 2022
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I use my PC mainly for media editing with Adobe software, but for the last few weeks I've noticed, while using DAZ Studio, a fairly memory intensive program, that it's become gradually slower and it's crashing more and more. Rendering in DAZ tends to use around 10-12GB of memory, which hasn't been a problem until now. So I cleaned out my system and updated all of my drivers hoping it would make a difference. I tried to render again, and it worked fine for about two hours, then my PC froze and I had to reboot it. When it started again I noticed that I couldn't use more than 2GB, the other 14GB being "Hardware reserved", and I have no idea what that means.

I've searched for some solutions and the things I've tried are:

  • Updated and reinstalled my GPU drivers.
  • Done a full malware scan.
  • Maximum memory is unticked in BOOT Advanced Options.
  • Reset BIOS settings.
  • Updated BIOS.
  • Increased pagefile.
  • Tried reseating and switching places of the sticks. This made no difference and it boots fine regardless of which stick is in which slot. When I only use one of them there's 2GB usable, 6GB hardware reserved, goes for both sticks.
System
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700K CPU @ 3.60GHz
GPU: Geforce RTX 2080
Installed RAM: 16GB
OS: Windows 10, 64bit
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon

I'm pretty much out of ideas. Could it be my hardware that's gone faulty? Maybe the motherboard?

Summary: PC gradually started freezing more and more, and it now refuses to use more than 2GB memory, leaving the remaining 14GB hardware reserved.
 
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punkncat

punkncat

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Before replacing anything...

Hardware reserved is a general term for things such as your iGPU, page file, and other factors where the system will reserve RAM for use as it moves things in and out of storage and such.

I would assume this system is on an SSD for OS and that you have more than 20% free space remaining?

I would probably try to reset CMOS, set defaults, set page file to auto and see if that changes anything. If not I think I would nuke and re-install OS just to see. Might be worth performing SFC/DISM just to see if it comes up with anything first.
It does seem quite unusual to me that it would be reserving this much RAM at the same time as having discrete graphics.
 
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C

Cstyle12

Aug 14, 2022
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0
10
punkncat said:
Before replacing anything...

Hardware reserved is a general term for things such as your iGPU, page file, and other factors where the system will reserve RAM for use as it moves things in and out of storage and such.

I would assume this system is on an SSD for OS and that you have more than 20% free space remaining?

I would probably try to reset CMOS, set defaults, set page file to auto and see if that changes anything. If not I think I would nuke and re-install OS just to see. Might be worth performing SFC/DISM just to see if it comes up with anything first.
It does seem quite unusual to me that it would be reserving this much RAM at the same time as having discrete graphics.
Click to expand...
You would assume correctly about the SSD. I'm going to do what you said with CMOS and SFC/DISM and see if anything happens. I'll probably wait to re-install the OS though and see if any other ideas come up.

Is there any other information that I missed that would prove helpful?
 
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B

Bob.B

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Feb 8, 2021
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Cstyle12 said:
I use my PC mainly for media editing with Adobe software, but for the last few weeks I've noticed, while using DAZ Studio, a fairly memory intensive program, that it's become gradually slower and it's crashing more and more. Rendering in DAZ tends to use around 10-12GB of memory, which hasn't been a problem until now. So I cleaned out my system and updated all of my drivers hoping it would make a difference. I tried to render again, and it worked fine for about two hours, then my PC froze and I had to reboot it. When it started again I noticed that I couldn't use more than 2GB, the other 14GB being "Hardware reserved", and I have no idea what that means.

I've searched for some solutions and the things I've tried are:

  • Updated and reinstalled my GPU drivers.
  • Done a full malware scan.
  • Maximum memory is unticked in BOOT Advanced Options.
  • Reset BIOS settings.
  • Updated BIOS.
  • Increased pagefile.
  • Tried reseating and switching places of the sticks. This made no difference and it boots fine regardless of which stick is in which slot. When I only use one of them there's 2GB usable, 6GB hardware reserved, goes for both sticks.
System
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700K CPU @ 3.60GHz
GPU: Geforce RTX 2080
Installed RAM: 16GB
OS: Windows 10, 64bit
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon

I'm pretty much out of ideas. Could it be my hardware that's gone faulty? Maybe the motherboard?

Summary: PC gradually started freezing more and more, and it now refuses to use more than 2GB memory, leaving the remaining 14GB hardware reserved.
Click to expand...
How many sticks of ram?

If more than one what happens if you only use one stick?
 
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Colif

Colif

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Jun 12, 2015
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CPU has an igpu but most it can use at any time is half your ram, not 14 of 16gb or even 6 of 8gb.
and if you plugged Display into GPU it won't be using any
GPU the same, most it can share is half ram and its got 8gb of its own.

Curious, is usage the same in safe mode?
  1. go to settings/update & security/recovery
  2. under advanced startup, click restart now button
  3. this restarts PC in a blue menu
  4. choose troubleshoot
  5. choose advanced
  6. choose startup options
  7. click the restart button
  8. choose a safe mode (it doesn't matter which) by using number associated with it.
  9. Pc will restart and load safe mode
Could 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 BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

Dimms in A2 & B2? 2nd and 4th slots moving away from CPU

this might help - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi.../testref/bde9eb4f-96e8-4be7-9f7b-22c6169e09ad
wasn't aware hardware reserved could include drivers. safe mode might show if it is or not.

Could be DAZ Studio - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/416516/daz-studio-reserved-gpu-memory
but that is VRAM, unless PC sees it as the same
It doesn't sound like it uses a lot. a few 100mb
wonder what DXDiag shows. it could be the shared ram for the gpu if you use 10-12gb, but it should release it.. you would think.

Obviously you not using 32bit windows.

does the system take it right away at startup or over time?
https://community.adobe.com/t5/ligh...ram-memory-leak-still-not-fixed/td-p/10835594
 
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