Strange behavior or/and signs of failure

[batikiotis]

Hello all. I have a system made by MSI 990FXA-GD65 motherboard, AMD FX-8120 CPU, 16GB Kingston and G.Skill DDR3 memory and Nvidia GTX650 GPU.
Lately i get some random errors with my memory. Although my BIOS recognizes 16gb of RAM, my WIN 7 x64 sometimes, can use 7,95GB. What i do is i detached memory dimms and attached them again one by one and then i get full functionality, but not all the time. During this procedure i get sometimes issues with OS startup! And the most weird when i get less RAM usable i can see more GB free in my main SSD disk. Let's say from 20GB free to 30GB!!
The system is about 5 years old and i'm worried about it's reliability.

 

[bvanevery]

Why not run some kind of official memory diagnostic on the memory and call it a day. If it's trash it's trash. Either you willingly use it with the expectation that it can blow up in your face and cause you whatever headaches that causes, or you pull it and don't use it. Either you buy new memory or you don't.

 

[batikiotis]

Why not run some kind of official memory diagnostic on the memory and call it a day. If it's trash it's trash. Either you willingly use it with the expectation that it can blow up in your face and cause you whatever headaches that causes, or you pull it and don't use it. Either you buy new memory or you don't.

Of course this is something i have done. The problem is not memory related. I believe it's MB related.

 

[bvanevery]

Of course this is something i have done.

No "of course" about it. Nobody would know you had done that unless you said so.

The problem is not memory related. I believe it's MB related.

So run official diagnostic on MB and same advice about "what next", replacing word "MB" for memory? Unless you are handy at soldering and lucky with what the problem is. Or it's under warranty. Or you fiddled and set something wrong somewhere. Guess you'd want to do some kind of factory reset in that case. Assuming this time "of course" you have latest BIOS and chipset drivers.

For laughs you could throw Linux on it and see if it runs better.

I happen to have read a sticked FAQ, don't know if the following words help you at all:

6.Have you tried booting with just one stick of RAM installed? (Try each stick of RAM individually in each RAM slot.) If you can get the system to boot with a single stick of RAM, you should enable an XMP profile or manually set the RAM speed, timings, and voltage to the manufacturers specs in the BIOS before attempting to boot with all sticks of RAM installed. If your motherboard supports XMP profiles that is the best way to get your RAM running at its rated specs. Nearly all motherboards default to the standard RAM voltage (1.8v for DDR2 & 1.5v for DDR3). If your RAM is rated to run at a voltage higher than the standard voltage, the motherboard will underclock the RAM for compatibility reasons. If you want the system to be stable and to run the RAM at its rated specs, you should either enable an XMP profile or manually set the values in the BIOS. Many boards don't supply the RAM with enough voltage when using "auto" settings which causes stability issues.