16Gb installed RAM (4Gb usable)

Absalom76 · 27 Aug 2013

Hello all!
I noticed when poking around in my computer settings and hardware information, that my RAM is showing (16Gb), but only 4Gb are "usable". I have been looking all over creation to find out why, but to no avail. I am utilizing:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit OS,
AMD Phenom II x6 1090T,
ASRock 970 Extreme3 mobo,
4 (4Gb) sticks of G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 ram,
and a
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 graphics card

I have tried all sorts of things, from tweaking the volts a bit (which showed 8 Gb usable out of 16 installed and crashed the computer),
to putting one stick in the mobo at a time, and booting with each stick (this gave me 5 short beeps when trying to boot two of the sticks individually). As a side note, When I have all RAM in it shows all 4 in my bios and on my System Properties.

I now have the 2 sticks in (that didn't cause the 5-beep error) which is 8Gb, and it's only showing 4 Gb usable.

On another note, from time to time when booting, I get an error that says to, "reboot, and select a bootable device" even though the HDD has not been changed or manipulated in any way. If all of these things are able to be addressed through a tweaking of my bios, I can't seem to find an easy way to do it anywhere!

My apologies if I missed a thread that pertained to this issue, but I have a bit of a Frankenstein computer on my hands here and could use some advice!
Thank you in advance!

ICIT2LOL · 28 Aug 2013

Hello and welcome Absalom mate try a memtest first up maybe you have some bad sticks or slots even .

You need to make a bootable disk then set the BIOS to boot from the optical and then let it run for at minimum of 8 passes unless you get errors straight away see RAM - Test with Memtest86+

AddRAM · 28 Aug 2013

But have you talked with ASRock about it ?

Absalom76 · 29 Aug 2013

I have not talked with ASRock about it. Right now, I have 8Gb inserted and 4Gb is usable. I have actually done a memory test with the Windows program that comes with my OS, and it didn't come up with anything. It even automatically ran check disc. Basically the "monster" runs, but not to full capacity. THANKS FOR THE REPLIES!

AddRAM · 29 Aug 2013

Go into task manager/performance/resource monitor/memory all the memory should show up and tell you where it`s being used.

Absalom76 · 29 Aug 2013

AddRAM said:

Go into task manager/performance/resource monitor/memory all the memory should show up and tell you where it`s being used.

If I plug in all my sticks of RAM, all 16Gb show up, however only partial memory is "usable" (normally 4Gb) no matter how much I have plugged into the mobo
:)

AddRAM · 29 Aug 2013

Did you do what I told you ?

Post a snip of it.

Absalom76 · 29 Aug 2013

AddRAM said:

Did you do what I told you ?

Post a snip of it.

I will be doing a memtest overnight as they request that you let it run that long. I will reply with my findings as soon as I have more info! thank you for the advice! I will keep you posted!

AddRAM · 29 Aug 2013

A memory test will do nothing for your problem.

And who is THEY ?

ICIT2LOL · 30 Aug 2013

Hiyya AddRam I said at the beginning I think it was that the memtest should be run for at least 8 passes but stop if it showed errors straight away.

I don't know exactly who THEY are but suspect it might be in the tutorial but without reading through it again can't be sure.

I only advised that if only to rule out bad sticks or slots and then go from there.

Absalom mate are the sticks all the same - are they a set of four or two sets of two (matched sticks) or are they just a mixture of different numbered sticks (not all exactly the same numbers on each one of them) ?