Half my ram reserved by hardware. Has anyone solved this

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lancelotdulak

Active Member
Nov 7, 2018
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I have an ab350gaming mb with a ryzen 1700x. 2 16gb chips and 2 8gb chips in dual mode. Previously i had 2 8gb in dual and a 16. It cirrently shows 24gb reserved for hardware and in the previous config it also reserved exhorbitant ram thpugh i think less than 50%. I do have 2 ssd's and 2 hard drives installed but it makes no sense theyd create some kind of massive buffer for them. Im pretty sure i have on board graphics shut off but even if o dont that shouldnt reserve 24gb of ram

There is no information out there on why\how etc from MS or anyone else and people are propagating a solution that doesnt work

Ive done everything i can think of pther than install the latest bios patches , which shouldnt matter and the bios isnt "old" in any event. The patches all seem to be based arpund ryzen3000


Im going home after work and switching ram slots around nad incrementally rebooting then trying pita bios updates but this is a very common problem if you search for it and i have yet to find a single solution. The standard one is to uncheck an msconfig box which should never be checked in the fors place.


Has anyone encoumtered this or found a solution?
 
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Synx

Member
Jul 30, 2018
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Not 100% sure on this, but I think your problem just lies on the different sizes. You can use different ram sizes, but to make them run together your motherboard 'reduces' your 16gb sticks to 8gb to match the other 2. That's why it's always advices to use the same size/speed/frequency sticks in each slots.
 
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lancelotdulak

Active Member
Nov 7, 2018
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Synx said:
Not 100% sure on this, but I think your problem just lies on the different sizes. You can use different ram sizes, but to make them run together your motherboard 'reduces' your 16gb sticks to 8gb to match the other 2. That's why it's always advices to use the same size/speed/frequency sticks in each slots.
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As long as the lanes are matched.. 16 26 and 8 8 it should work fine. And this happened.before i put in this last 16 and i believe even when i had 3 is. The big reason to match ram is for timings and to run them dual channel so you dont have to run at lowest common denominator.

This is a shockingly common problem and ms has been silent on it for years. If ypu check their help forums their techs roll out the same standard bullshit they always do. Because they dont know what theyre doing

Oh and just the two 16s would be 32 or 4x8 would be 32 and its leaving me 24

I do appreciate you both trying to help though
 
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Synx

Member
Jul 30, 2018
495
475
Have you tried putting the memory sticks into another pc, see if you get the same result? Or only put the two 16gb ones in, and see if you still get the problem.

If you get the same problem in another pc, or not with just the two 16 sticks, your memory sticks are just a miss match. Even if they match size wise, just being from different brands can already fuck their synergy up.

If you don't get the same problem in a different pc, or get the same problem with just the 16gb sticks, it might just be an hardware failure. I assume you have already changed the max memory value to 0 in Msconfig. You could check inside Bios for your internal graphic card memory usage (should be on the lowest value), but since you said you turned it of, I doubt that's the issue.

Maybe look up if this is an known issue with your motherboard. If it is and you still got warranty on it, you can send it back and maybe get it replaced that way. If it's not a known issue, maybe check for motherboard damages (like a bended pin).

I wouldn't know otherwise.
 
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lancelotdulak

Active Member
Nov 7, 2018
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I switched ram around to test. I dont have another ddr4 pc to check with. I will try doing a much more thourough test of each stick and combinations thanks. Ive been avoiding being that thorough as i dont think the ram is a problem


. As to the msconfig thing: that box should never be checked in the forst place unless someone did it manually so i dont understand why people constantly push that. If you check forums and youtube youll see people who have never had the problem pushing it and post after post saying it solved nothing.

If it is mismatched ram in a modern pc it would just refuse to run dual channel and or slow both sticks down to the least common denominator

I upgraded my bios yesterday.. It didnt allow you to adjust memory other than timing so im going to try bios swttings tonigh if i can get it to boot to bios...

Ill probably even try a linux usb boot disk. If it is fine in linux then it is as i expect yet another flaw in windows ms just ignores and blames on users.
 
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lancelotdulak

Active Member
Nov 7, 2018
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557
Synx ive tried everything. im 99.9% sure the bios is toast. im useing an old pc now. Im going to post a thread asking for mb suggestions. It wont be a gigabyte.
 
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lancelotdulak

Active Member
Nov 7, 2018
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I bought an asus 450 pro. Im not entirely sure of the differences but im thinking its an upgrade. thank god it works was afraid i had toasted the cpu. And ... still only 24gb useable. im 100% sure this is windows problem and microsoft either doesnt care or doesnt want us to know
 
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