8gb ram installed. windows says only 3.96 is useable??

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timaishu

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Apr 2, 2010
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Did a partial upgrade a week ago and these are the new parts I installed:

Win 7 Professional 64bit
AMD FX-6350 stock speeds
Gigabyte 970A-UD3
G.Skill ripjawx 1866 2x4gb

Everything else I re-used. Anyways, I put it together and everything was fine and dandy until today when I decided to pull the stock heatsink off and install my old one(realized that even though it says AM2, they have the same mounting system). It was a tight fit, so along with taking the stock heatsink off, I pulled the ram as well to give me more room.

I put it back together and it booted fine. I dont remember what prompted me to look, but I went to system and say that it says that 8gb is installed, but only 3.96gb is useable. Strange. I am quite sure this wasnt the case prior to me installing the cooler and pulling the ram.

They were installed in the exact same configuration as before(unsure if they were put back in the same slots they were installed in before). Also, I was grounded the entire time, so ESD damage is highly unlikely.

Any ideas? So far I tried setting maximum memory in msconfig, re-flased my bios, reset bios to stock settings, re-seated the ram in opposite slots.

 
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timaishu

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You must have missed it, but I put that I DO have a legit copy of 64bit windows 7.
 
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timaishu

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Yep, that how its installed now, and how it was installed when I first got the parts a week and a half ago.

CPUZ claims that 8gb is installed, but it shows it as running single channel.
 
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RandomTox

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Try a CMOS reset. Disconnect the power cable to your motherboard and the extra CPU power cable. Then move the jumper over for a few seconds. How to do that, read the manual at the "16) CLR_CMOS (Clearing CMOS Jumper) " part.
After that you need to enter your BIOS and set time right again.
 
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timaishu

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Tried it and it didnt work. I know I did it right as on boot up it claimed I had reset the bios, it changed nothing in windows. Its not not "saying it" either, it boots up much slower now as if I had only 4gb installed compared to yeterday when I had no problems.

Im just gonna reformat and see what happens. I dont know what else to do.
 
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RandomTox

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Ever looked in your BIOS how much it shows there? If it is runs slower after reset it might because your memory setting are not right now.
Most memory have stickers on them with the settings. See if those are the same as in the BIOS.
 
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timaishu

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When I first put this build together. The bios had the ram running at 1600 instead of 1866 and the timings were off. Even then, it still showed 8gb in the system menu. I manually switched the timings and raised it to 1866 and it was still fine. NOW, even with the botched stock timings or the manually entered ones, it still shows 3.96 being useable. Nothing in the bios is different than what it was when I first installed everything. I dont know what is going on.

Since my last post I have reformatted and ,reseated the ram, reseated the cpu and put the stock cooler back on. Nothing has fixed it so far.

I am really close to just RMA'ing the ram/mobo at this point. Out of all the google searching I have done, everything I had tried has failed.
 
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jwjones87

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May 7, 2016
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I thought the same. I bought crucial ram from amazon. Crucial approved my rma, which is awesome!
 
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