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Problem description: I built this PC back in April, and I'll be honest I don't know if this is a recent issue or I just never realized I had been only running on 8GB of RAM (which would explain some stutters/lag in some of my games though). Windows only seems to detect or use 8 out of the 16GB RAM I have installed. The BIOS menu detects the RAM, CPU-Z detects the RAM, and you can even see that Windows detects it, but for some reason is reserving half of it. Here's the screenshot:  Attempted fixes: I googled and went through some of the various suggestions: 1 - Going into BOOT Advanced options in System Configuration and checking "Maximum Memory" and setting it manually to 16GB (this messed up my boot and afterwards the PC wouldnt boot without a BSOD, so I had to go into CMD line and clear BCEDIT to get it back to boot. 2 - Going into the same menu above and making sure its UNCHECKED completely. 3 - Moved the RAM sticks to A1 / B1 instead of the normal/recommended A2 / B2 slots. 4 - Swapped the RAM sticks around (in the A2 / B2 slots but reversed) 5 - Checked each RAM stick individually in the A2 slot, and each one came up and displayed 8GB as being detected and fully used by Windows. 6 - Changed the XMP profile in the BIOS menu to a specific profile instead of AUTO (didn't work, so I changed it back to auto) 7 - I went to the ASRock website and can see there have been newer BIOS updates available, however each of the newest ones say"*ASRock do NOT recommend updating this BIOS if Pinnacle, Raven or Summit Ridge CPU is being used on your system". I'm using the AMD Ryzen 5 2600, which according to CPU-Z is a Pinnacle Ridge CPU, so I did not do any updates to the BIOS. 8 - I took out the little lithium battery in the Mobo for 15min to reset the CMOS. 9 - I checked to see if there was some sort of integrated graphics that was reserving the memory, but couldn't find any iGPU settings in the BIOS menu to change. Recent changes: I built this PC back in April and I'll be honest, I don't know when this first started, its very possible that this was like this from the beginning because I never noticed until today. A Tech support guy who was troubleshooting my internet speed problems noticed it and said I should try and fix it before attempting anything else (apparently my PC is also throttling our internet from 250mbps down to 60 since we tested it on a direct ethernet on my laptop and it worked perfectly). He says its unlikely, but possible the RAM issue is affecting the speed. When I first built the PC, I accidentally added on a little bit of extra thermal paste (I didnt realize that the CPU came with thermal paste already added), and I had to wipe up a bit of it. On my first install, it wouldn't post, so I unplugged everything and reset the CPU back into place (and also had checked the pins at that time and confirmed none were bent or had any thermal paste or anything on them). -- Operating system: Windows 10 Home 64bit System specs:: CPU: Ryzen 5 2600 Mobo: ASRock B450 Pro4 RAM: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) , GPU: ASUS GeForce GTX 1660 Super Phoenix OC - 6GB GDDR6 also here's screenshots of my CPU-Z output:     Location: Canada I have Googled and read the FAQ: Yes (see above for the steps I've taken from what I found).
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Aug 13, 2020 00:10
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 17:24 |
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Any different results running the RAM at default cpu supported speed?
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Aug 13, 2020 23:23
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DOOMocrat posted:Any different results running the RAM at default cpu supported speed? Do you mean running it at an XMP profile or Auto? Those seem to be my only options in the BIOS menu.
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Aug 14, 2020 15:12
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http://www.asrock.com/feature/XFast/XFastRAM/index.asp Check to see if XFast RAM is enabled in the BIOS. It's probably turned on and set to use 50% of the installed RAM as a virtual disk. Disable it. Edit: it might also be enabled/disabled by their optimization app. Scruffpuff fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Aug 16, 2020 |
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Aug 16, 2020 07:08
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Bumping this old thread because I never did get to the bottom of this issue and my RAM is still showing half of it as "hardware reserved". More recent Google searches haven't revealed any good troubleshooting advice or even solutions beyond just getting a completely new motherboard. Would love some help on this! Scruffpuff posted:http://www.asrock.com/feature/XFast/XFastRAM/index.asp My mobo isn't listed on that page for XFast RAM (unless I am misunderstanding their product naming convention? I searched the model number B450 and the AM4 socket and found nothing there)
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Jan 18, 2021 20:46
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Is W10 fully updated? If so, I'd try booting from a Linux USB and see if all 16GB shows up there.
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Jan 20, 2021 23:05
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Try A1/A2 for the RAM.
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Jan 22, 2021 05:35
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Also the integrated graphics RAM memory option is under Advanced Settings --> Northbridge Configuration --> Share Memory.
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Jan 22, 2021 05:41
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It's taken me almost two years to finally get off my rear end and troubleshoot this problem fully but for the sake of posterity (and my own frustration with online tech support posts where OP's asking similar questions never follow up) I thought I'd respond to what the culprit is. I went through all 12 complete possible configurations and recorded the results, and lo and behold the PC wouldn't even boot when one of the two sticks was the only one installed, so its likely the culprit. So anyone looking for this "hardware reserved" issue, if it isn't (1) integrated graphics reserving it or (2) a problem with a BIOS profile (i.e. XFast RAM etc.) then probably the stick itself doesn't work. Thanks for those who helped earlier, sorry if this counts as necro but I figured a wrap-up was better then leaving it?
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Apr 24, 2022 15:05
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Oysters Autobio posted:...but I figured a wrap-up was better then leaving it? 
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Apr 24, 2022 20:04
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Oysters Autobio posted:It's taken me almost two years to finally get off my rear end and troubleshoot this problem fully but for the sake of posterity (and my own frustration with online tech support posts where OP's asking similar questions never follow up) I thought I'd respond to what the culprit is. Well well well, if it isn't old confident me in my troubleshooting abilities. TLDR for others but my OP detailed that half of my memory (16GB) was "hardware reserved" according to Windows, but fully detected in BIOS menu and CPU-Z. I did that test above and thought I concluded properly that the RAM was busted. Update - Still stupid 2 years on Finally was tired of poor performance so decided to say gently caress it and go for 32GB RAM (didnt want to RMA all my RAM). Boot it up and would you look at that, same problem, but at least now I'm getting 16GB / 32GB. (bought the 32GB (16x2) G.SKILL TridentZ - DDR-2400 (32GTZRX)) What the gently caress? Given all the troubleshooting here, could a CPU pin be bent? If you read my OP I described accidentally putting on thermal paste when it was already pre-applied for my CPU, and I ended up wiping some off, so could I have that easily bent a CPU pin? I remember checking the pins the first time around and they all looked okay, i guess? So now I'm assuming its either the mobo or CPU is hosed, but the mobo BIOS screen is should all 32GB in the memory section, so does that rule out the mobo?
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Sep 27, 2023 16:53
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So it sounds like one original stick of RAM was bad in some way but that wasn't even the primary issue.Oysters Autobio posted:What the gently caress? Given all the troubleshooting here, could a CPU pin be bent? If you read my OP I described accidentally putting on thermal paste when it was already pre-applied for my CPU, and I ended up wiping some off, so could I have that easily bent a CPU pin? I remember checking the pins the first time around and they all looked okay, i guess? It's possible the CPU/motherboard has damage but doesn't explain the discrepancy between the BIOS and OS RAM amount. Do you remember what BIOS version you originally had? Because even 3.9 may be too new.
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Sep 27, 2023 23:38
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Zogo posted:So it sounds like one original stick of RAM was bad in some way but that wasn't even the primary issue. I don't recall ever flashing a new BIOS version when I first setup the PC, so I'm assuming 3.9 is what was originally installed. I did however notice the size here of my virtual memory and page file seems high, no?   The D:/ drive is my secondary SSD I use mainly for video games. Is that a fairly normal page file to be automatically set? The SSD is currently sitting at 45GB free out of 465GB.
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Sep 28, 2023 01:25
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Oysters Autobio posted:I did however notice the size here of my virtual memory and page file seems high, no? That's on the higher side but not that abnormal. It could be decreased if you wanted.
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Sep 28, 2023 05:18
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Yeah I played around with the paging file sizes and restarted but didn't seem to have an effect on the original problem. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot further would be much appreciated. Like mentioned earlier, damaged mobo doesn't make sense because the BIOS page is showing the full RAM (32GB), it's just Windows somehow is reserving half of it for unspecified reasons.
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Oct 12, 2023 19:23
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 17:24 |
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Oysters Autobio posted:Any ideas on how to troubleshoot further would be much appreciated. Like mentioned earlier, damaged mobo doesn't make sense because the BIOS page is showing the full RAM (32GB), it's just Windows somehow is reserving half of it for unspecified reasons. Did you ever try booting from a Linux OS on a flash drive and see how much RAM shows up? That'd narrow the issue down a little more.
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Oct 12, 2023 22:49
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