Wild RAM issues

Hey there,

I’m hitting a massive wall with my RAM, and honestly, it’s driving me a little crazy. Here’s the deal: I have two sticks of Kingston RAM 800 MHz PC2-6400 (2GB each). When I pop them into my PC, the system detects 4GB total, but it says only 2GB is actually usable. If I pull one stick out, it shows 2GB total, but again, only 1GB is usable. My motherboard has four slots—two yellow ones and two red ones. I’ve tried swapping every single stick into every single slot, but the result is always the same. It’s like no matter where I plug them in, they just get cut in half. Now, here is where it gets weird. I have another computer running a single 2GB Kingmax stick with the exact same specs. When I use just that one, it correctly shows 2GB usable. But if I throw all three sticks in there (the Kingmax plus those two Kingston ones), it shows 4GB usable out of 6GB total. So, it recognizes the full 2GB from the Kingmax, plus half of each of the two Kingston sticks. However, when I take those problematic Kingston sticks over to this second machine, they work perfectly—it shows the full 4GB out of 4GB. I am completely stumped. Both machines are running identical 64-bit Windows.

The funny thing is, the CPU-Z program actually sees the full amount of RAM in both slots; it’s just Windows that insists on showing me only half.
On my first motherboard, it lists DDRII 800/1066/FSB1333
while the second one says DDR2 1066

Any help at all would be amazing. Thanks a million, everyone!

What kind of graphics are we talking about in this rig... maybe just integrated?
And how much Intel does the motherboard actually support?

wearymason4 said:What kind of graphics card is in that PC... maybe integrated?
And how much RAM can the motherboard handle?

AMD Radeon HD 6570
I'm not entirely sure, but I honestly doubt that's the issue here. Even when I pop in those 2GB Kingston sticks, the system only shows me 1GB total.

Since when has it been acting like that? If the BIOS is flagging something as HW reserved, then that’s pretty much the smoking gun right there, isn't it? It's almost certainly just grabbing memory for the on-board graphics. What's the exact motherboard model you're running?

First things first, you really need to check what the maximum amount of Intel memory that motherboard can actually handle. I have a buddy whose limit is stuck at 2 GB, for example. Just Google the model of your motherboard and look up its capacity limit. It could also be an issue with Windows itself. Try creating a new partition and installing a different version of Windows on it just to see what happens there.

Roger Gray8 said:Since when? If the BIOS shows it as HW reserved, that's pretty much it. It’s likely just the integrated graphics taking up space. What's the exact motherboard model you're working with?

Honestly, I think it's always been like that. It isn't actually my rig.
The board is a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
It's got an AMD Radeon HD 6570 installed, the drivers are all set, and the system picks it up fine in the driver manager.

steelgull47 said:First thing you should do is check the maximum amount of Intel memory that motherboard can actually handle. I have a buddy whose rig caps out at just 2 GB, for example. Just Google the motherboard model and look up its limits. It could also be a Windows issue, though. Try creating a new partition and installing a different version of Windows on it to see if that changes anything.

The board is a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L. It’s definitely not a Windows problem—I've seen this exact same thing happen on Windows 7, Windows 10, and Windows 8. Plus, I have another PC running the exact same version of Windows that shows the full capacity of the Intel memory without any issues.

Man, I’m starting to think it’s definitely not a BIOS issue. My Kingmax RAM sticks are behaving perfectly fine—one 2GB stick shows up as the full 2GB without any drama. But these Kingston sticks? Total headache. I’ve got two 2GB modules, and they both show up as half capacity. Even when I try running just one Kingston stick by itself, the system only sees 1GB instead of the full 2GB. The weirdest part is that when I test these exact same sticks in a different PC, they work perfectly fine. So, something is definitely up here.

Here’s a shot of my BIOS settings:

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http://i.imgur.com/n3xovqQ.jpg

Hit the Start menu, type in msconfig, then head over to -> Boot -> Advanced Options and make sure that "Maximum memory" box is unchecked (assuming there's even a checkmark there to begin with).

You should probably flash the latest BIOS, too. It might just be outdated.

If that doesn't do the trick, try making a Hiren bootable drive to run some Hardware diagnostics. Who knows? It might not even be an issue with the RAM. Something else could be acting up.

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/

https://rufus.akeo.ie/

Just download the Hiren ISO to your computer, then use Rufus to burn it onto a USB drive in a bootable format. Give your computer a restart and make sure you set it to boot from that USB first.

Here are the instructions:

steelgull47 said:Hit the Start menu, type in msconfig, then head over to the Boot tab and check out Advanced Options. Make sure "Maximum memory" isn't checked—if it even shows a checkmark at all.

Update your BIOS to the latest version, too. It might just be outdated.

If that doesn't do the trick, try burning a Hiren bootable drive to run some hardware diagnostics. It might not actually be a Microsoft issue; something else could be acting up.

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/

https://rufus.akeo.ie/

Just download the Hiren ISO to your computer, then use Rufus to flash it onto a USB drive in a bootable format. Give your PC a restart and tell it to boot from that USB stick first.

Here are some instructions

I actually tried that first thing, but no luck there.
I'm going to give the second suggestion a shot sometime this week. Thanks!