why??!! Upgraded 10GB RAM -- 1.59 usable

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king of rock

king of rock

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My teenager bought her own laptop recently (toshiba satellite C855D-S5320)... It was awfully sluggish, so I had her buy some additional memory (compatible according to Toshiba).

Laptop would not recognize the new memory. Upon a small bit of research, it looked like updating the BIOS usually would help this problem. Thanks to tomshardware, I was able to update the bios, but still only 1.59 usable ram.

Any ideas? 64 bit win 8
 
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ingtar33

ingtar33

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Dec 17, 2012
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could be bad ram... wait... i think i have an answer. your laptop is an AMD APU. Go into the laptop's bios and set how much system ram is set aside for the onboard graphics. you probably won't ever need more then 2gb for the onboard gpu, my guess is it's taking 8.5gb of your ram for the gpu... you should be able to manually set it to 2gb. which would leave you 8gb for system ram.

btw: make sure your bios is listing all the ram you have. as long as the bios is seeing the 10gb we should be able to fix the problem.
 
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king of rock

king of rock

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@ingtar33--NOPE...vanilla bios, no assignable ram (any other ideas?)

@u_gonna_squeal_b4_we_cookya--where did I see 1.59? On the control panel/system and security/system "installed memory (RAM): 10GB (1.59 usable)
 
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ingtar33

ingtar33

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i'm pretty sure even a vanilla bios would have some ram settings. but i'll roll with the punch. lets double check what windows sees. in win8 click windows key + x then click system, and see what it says you have for system ram.

 
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king of rock

king of rock

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Yes, as mentioned above, in SYSTEM:

installed memory (RAM): 10.0GB (1.59 usable)
System type: 64 bit OS, x64-based processor
Processor: AMD E-300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics

Thanks for your perseverance! I appreciate it

 
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king of rock

king of rock

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Yes, I did try this, and while max memory was unclicked, I clicked it, either way, it didn't work. LOVE that idea...it didn't work. Wahhhhhhhhhhhh
 
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ingtar33

ingtar33

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mmm... ok, did you mix and match your new ram with the old? 10gb tells me you had 1 slot of 2gb and you added an 8gb chip to it. Sometimes that can cause an issue if the ram isn't identical. try it without the 2gb chip of ram and see if you have 8 (minus whatever for the vram)



i'm looking everywhere for something that shows the bios you've got. can't find it but i'm convinced it's a bios setting, so if that doesn't fix it we'll poking around in the bios a bit more.


Lets do this 1 step at a time.

1) turn off your laptop and remove the battery, pull out the ram chips, and reinsert them.
2) turn pc back on and enter the bios. Look for the following possible options (you might need to navagate a bit to find them)

a)IGP - should be your onboard graphics, see if you can find that somewhere around the northbridge or cpu settings
b)PCI-E - this would be disabled i suspect, but look around the northbridge for something meantioning it as well, if you can find this you'll be close to your graphics settings
c)DRAM - there should be a DRAM section somewhere, allowing you to play with your ram settings, see if you navigate in there there is an option for setting up system/video ram
 
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king of rock

king of rock

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Have one (original) 2gb ram, one (new) 8gb ram. Toshiba verified before I bought that this config is fine and they don't have to be paired equally. Toshiba recommends and sells the stick I am using, though I bought it from newegg.

Pulling out 8gb ram, leaving ONLY 2gb in laptop, shows 2gb (1.59 usable). Pulling 2gb ram, leaving only 8gb in laptop, doesn't power up. Switching both sticks together either way shows 10gb (1.59 usable)

Don't think 8gb is bad, since it is showing up as existing!

Went back into BIOS...there is no options at all!

1) Main = Date/time ; list of hardware; bios version; memory size; language
2) Security = Passwords; secure boot option
3) Power Management
4) Advanced = boot speed; beep sound; USB Power; USB Legacy emulation; System configuration (built in LAN; Internal pointing device; web camera; boot mode; power on display; function keys mode)
5) Boot
6) Exit

In Advanced (although like I said, there is almost ZERO modifications for some reason), but

please NOTE: In device manager, my processor is listed TWICE...(AMD E-300 w/Radeon HD Graphics)

Wonder if I delete one of the two (or both) and restart, may solve problem. What do you think?!
 
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The_Doctor

The_Doctor

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Yours always ment to duel channel ram with the same amount (ie 2gb 2gb, 4gb 4gb) but as it doesnt boot with the 8gb there is an issue with the ram. Whats your MB and whats the Rams Speed and DDR
The Doctor
 
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king of rock

king of rock

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Doctor, I am not saying you are wrong, but Toshiba rep assured me I didn't need to match sticks.

Not near laptop right now, I will check DDR and ram speed (not sure what MB refers to in this case...?) I also edited my post above...do you think processor listed twice in device manager is an issue?
 
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The_Doctor

The_Doctor

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The Reps right the laptop will still run without the optimum duel channel config it will just be slower. My main concern is ram speed and DDR the MB in this case refers to "motherboard" now motherboards only can accept certain speed and DDR ram ie up to DDR3 1600mhz if its the wrong speed it can either bottleneck the ram (Thats normally ok just makes it slower) or render the Ram unusable .
The Doctor
 
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king of rock

king of rock

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I found the 8GB from link of my order, so hopefully this is info:

http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Technology-1333MHz-KTT-S3B-8G/dp/tech-data/B007R743MU/ref=de_a_smtd

this seems to be the mb: http://www.ebay.com/itm/motherboard-for-Toshiba-Satellite-C855D-S5302-15-6-notebook-genuine-new-/160922012728
 
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The_Doctor

The_Doctor

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I believe these are the official specs http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/C850/C855D-S5320/ (care to confirm)
If so the ram you have bought is right.
The Doctor
 
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king of rock

king of rock

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Doctor: actually it is this one http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/C850/C855D-S5302/

my daughter bought it from BestBuy on blackfriday...I think it is a version special for that chain/that sales event... (5302 NOT 5320)
 
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king of rock

king of rock

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boy, I dunno, it shows 10GB ram installed, but only 1.59 usable...how would it KNOW that it had 10GB installed?! (I have seen a lot of people with this issue in Win7--but, I haven't seen a solution)
 
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ingtar33

ingtar33

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Its bad ram. amazed it would start with a bad stick of ram but there you have it. problem solved. Return it and get a replacement.
 
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halopcdraco

halopcdraco

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I'm not sure if this got resolved, but I had 16GB of ram (12GB usable). Come to find out, one of my ram sticks wasn't in all the way. I did a memtestx86 on each ram stick for another problem. 3 passed 1 didn't. My computer wouldn't post. Posting is when you get your pc manufacturer or in this case my motherboard's picture is the first thing you see when you power up your computer. Your 8GB stick of ram is faulty. Your 8GB stick of ram is also the wrong speed. Your 8GB or ram is 1333Mhz and your 2GB stick of ram is 1066Mhz.
 
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king of rock

king of rock

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Contacted amazon, who agreed to replace stick. (had to cajole them to do an even exchange, as the PRICE has risen 50% since I bought it) Anyway, it WAS bad ram, new stick registers 10gb ram, 9.58 usable.

Appreciate the help from everyone.
 
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halopcdraco

halopcdraco

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Did you at least get the right speed for the new stick of ram?
 
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coastie65

coastie65

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Actually, with your example ( three sticks at 1333 Mhz and one at 1066 Mhz ) it would run at 1066 Mhz not 1333 mhz. Would have ben better to have gone with 2 sticks at 4 Gb each, as that is plenty anyway. Having mismatched RAM is never good.
 
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