Only half of my memory is working! Need assistance. 4 years and the issue.
Only half of my memory is working! Need assistance. 4 years and the issue.
Hello there. Over the last four years I've faced this ongoing issue: only half of the RAM is functioning, regardless of the total amount. I've tried various solutions—testing the RAM, checking the BIOS settings. What I understand is that all four RAM modules are recognized, they operate correctly, and they're placed in the proper channels. I own two sets of RAM, totaling up to 32GB: (Two 16GB kits) Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16R Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3200MHz C16 XMP 2.0 High Performance Desktop Memory Kit. When I mention half being usable, it seems to be a persistent limitation. Back when I first assembled this system, I had just 16GB installed, but only 8 were actually working. I attempted fixes without success. I decided to purchase another 16GB kit so I could reach at least 16GB again. That worked, and now I have a total of 32GB RAM, though only 16 is accessible. My system specifications are: CPU – AMD Ryzen 1800X, GPU – GTX 1060. The motherboard appears to be an MSI B450 Gaming Plus MAX ATX AM4 board, paired with a 6TB Seagate HDD and a 250GB Samsung SATA SSD. Please help if you can, and feel free to ask any questions or request more details. I’m eager to resolve this issue as soon as possible.
Hardware reserved is 16GB. It's secured by the system. I've never encountered this problem before, but there are methods to resolve it. Search online for more information.
Attempted a method to maximize memory usage at startup and received this result. @Dedayog
It was about two years ago if I recall. I encountered some spamware and the simplest solution was to reset everything and reinstall Windows. I didn’t mention that I’ve been stuck with a specific Windows 10 version for nearly a year now, and I can’t upgrade to the latest release. I attempted updates but they consistently failed, even with ample storage on my boot drive. It seems unrelated to the RAM issue.
I was considering a fresh update, including all the correct drivers and BIOS changes, might affect this. Have you adjusted the BIOS settings and disabled the built-in VGA? If it's set to AUTO, it could still allocate RAM. It’s worth checking at least.
Maximum RAM requirements for the CPU are 2667 MHz. A possible compromise would be 3000 MHz if it supports it. Are you sure no one is watching Linus? He showed that a 50% speed boost only improves overall performance by about 5%. Compatibility and stability are the top priorities. It seems you might have fixed the CL/CAS settings, which is a major error for XMP and XMP beyond system limits. Set all timings to Auto, save and reset.
I checked each stick and slot separately. You mentioned you have the channels right, but please verify again. Windows displays only half of the available space, so it’s likely the full amount appears in BIOS as well. Have you tried a bootable Linux system to confirm all RAM is accessible?