Half of your RAM appeared as reserved hardware.
Half of your RAM appeared as reserved hardware.
i have 4 sticks of corsair ddr4 3200mhz ram on msi b450 mortar and i tested all the ram are working however whenever i try to boot up with the ram configuration like this: [(ram)(ram)(empty)(empty)] or [(empty)(empty)(ram)(ram)] my computer fails to boot up and the debug led light up on ram. Only with [(ram)(ram)(ram)(ram)] and [(empty)(ram)(empty)(ram)] and [(ram)(empty)(ram)(empty)] does my pc boot up Anyone have any idea if the motherboards is dying or its a bios/software issue? i have already checked my cpu for bent pins and reseated my cpu , cleared my bios , reset cmos by taking battery out the rest of my system if it matters: msi ventus gtx1660 super , ryzen 7 2700 , boot drive mx500 1tb
Is there a problem? The computer is supposed to be able to use ram-ram-ram-ram OR ram-empty-ram-empty OR empty-ram-empty-ram. Those settings are all in response to using dual channel memory. Booting your computer with the empty-empty-ram-ram OR ram-ram-empty-empty is really screwy and defeats the purpose of dual-channel. Use one of the options that works and forget about it. Why try to use it if it doesn't work? Oh, there is nothing wrong with your machine.
I previously had 32GB or more of RAM available, but now only 16GB is accessible while the remaining is reserved for hardware. I’ve documented the RAM setups I tested during troubleshooting to check if the RAM slot or channel is defective.
Inspect each stick separately to see if they function independently. A stick labeled as hardware reserved usually indicates a problem with either the stick or its memory channel. If they operate alone, the memory channel is likely faulty, which might affect both the board and the CPU.
I recently encountered this problem a few days back. My system was allocating only half of my available RAM. I’m using an Asus ROG Strix x470-F motherboard with BIOS from 2018, so I began by updating it. EZ Flash didn’t work, and selecting the update file from the SSD also failed. I ended up extracting the file to a USB drive, which resolved the issue. Because the BIOS was quite outdated, I upgraded to the latest version. The process went smoothly until I reached the next release. Suddenly everything went wrong—after the update, I saw a black screen. After some time, I powered it off and turned it back on. It displayed nothing but a black screen. After trying it multiple times and resetting CMOS, I realized I needed a new motherboard. Further research led me to an article suggesting a RAM swap from slots 2-4 to 1-3 to fix the black screen. I attempted the change but couldn’t because my CPU cooler was blocking one slot. I left just one stick in slot 2 and restarted. It worked! Once I entered BIOS, I booted into Windows. The hardware reservation problem also disappeared. I’m still unsure if it was the BIOS, the RAM, or both. TL;DR: Tried to fix the black screen after a BIOS update by clearing CMOS and rearranging RAM. Successfully resolved both issues.
Great news about fixing your problem, but for my PC I ended up with four RAM sticks in all slots, which makes me question if it’ll actually function. I’ve also swapped in a different motherboard and everything else is working fine, so I plan to replace the new one next month.
Reset the CMOS, clear all RAM, install a single stick in one of the slots, and restart the system. Check if the issue resolves itself. If it does, you can discard the existing RAM. This is essentially what I did.
The RAM slot arrangement is fine. I’ll describe it another way and refer to your motherboard guide. Based on your description, this isn’t a problem and swapping the motherboard won’t solve it. Your board works well with RAM changes. You should install RAM in alternating slots, as shown in the manual. Even if the system boots, performance will drop noticeably for memory-heavy tasks (such as gaming or apps that use a lot of RAM).
You might attempt inserting one stick into DIMM A2 according to your manual; this could get the computer running. If it still fails to boot, it suggests another issue.
If you encounter hardware-related problems, clear the CMOS first and check if that helps. Also, consider updating to the latest UEFI version—AMD has made improvements in stability and RAM support, which may resolve the concern.