Hardware Reserve Question

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InSovietRussia

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Aug 3, 2013
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I have 8gb of ram installed on my PC and windows says I have 8gb installed as well. But it only says 3.9gb is usable out of my 8gb. And in the resource monitor it shows the other 4.1gb as hardware reserved. So I'm wondering whether or not this is normal as it is nearly half of my installed physical memory being reserved.

Also please note:
I checked the maximum memory in msconfig and it remains unchecked

System Specs
AMD FX8350
Asus Sabertooth 990fx R2
Gskill Ripjaws 8gb DDR3
GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB GDDR5
WD Black 7200 Rpm 1Tb HDD
500w PSU
Win 7 Pro 64Bit
Bios is updated to the latest version 2501
 
Solution
P


Yes, you've found your problem.

Hardware reserved should be ~20MiB. If it's in the gigabyte range this indicates a faulty memory module, faulty DIMM slot, or a faulty memory controller.
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Shaun o

Shaun o

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Oct 7, 2007
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The reason why about you have 3.9Gb out of your total of 8Gb is because windows it`s self uses what we call a page file.
The size of it can be anything from 1/4 of the overall memory fitted to the system, to about 1/2 of it.
Windows reserves this for fixed memory locations for hardware, and the chip set used on the mother board.
And to also keep the core system files of windows resident in memory all of the time for quick access.

Some devices like a Cpu With incorporated Gpu functions also require use of your main system ram as a place to store things like textures for games, and low end Pci-e based graphics cards can use the same method, if they have less memory on the physical Pci-e based card. The term was often related to hyper memory where it would use a chunk of system memory as another place for texture storage and caching for the sole use of the graphics card.

All PC`s and systems do this as a way to seed up how fast and quick the data is accessed, as with old hard drives ect of the mechanical type were slow in comparison to system memory and the speed it can run at.

SSD drives of course speed this process up, but the idea is to be able to fetch the data required as quick as possible.
There for the system memory is used because its the fastest thing other than the cpu in the system.
 
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Tradesman1

Tradesman1

Legenda in Aeternum
Jun 5, 2013
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Page file has nothing to do with it, the page file is a reserved space on your hard drive so when memory (DRAM) runs low it writes frequently used data to the hard drive for faster retreival rather than having to recreate it or redownload from the web... I'd guess the DRAM may bnot be set up right, first try reseating the sticks of DRAM and see if that cures the problem... also can try raising the DRAM voltage up + 0.05 and the CPU/NB voltage up the same + 0.05. If not (assuming the sticks are in slots 1-3 or 2-4 try them in the other i.e. if in 1-3 try in 2-4, if no joy then try in 1-2 or 3-4 and see if all is seen and usable - if so then it may be a MC (memory controller) problem. If that appears to be the problem, first would be to loosen the CPU cooler a bit and snug back down, if too tight on a corner or side, that can prevent full contact of all pins and cause problems of this sort, if no joy there then may want to remove the CPU and check for bent/broken pins
 
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InSovietRussia

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CPU socket isn't the issue. So if that isn't the issue would this be considered normal? It's just kind of strange how win7 will consume 50% of my ram. And my cpu doesn't have a iGPU the mobo does but I'm using a discrete gpu.
 
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rhysiam

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Mar 24, 2013
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Nope, it's not normal. Something is definitely wrong. You're positive you're running 64bit Windows yeah?
The guy in this thread has a similar issue: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/309400-30-hardware-reserved-memory
It's worth going through the suggestions in the thread (some of which are similar to Tradesman1's suggestions above) to see what's going on.

First step is to try 1 DIMM at a time and confirm both work, then try alternative RAM slots. Even if (for the sake of testing) you put them on the same channel (thus disabling dual channel mode), that will point to a failed memory channel, which sounds like it was the issue in the thread above. That would be grounds to return the motherboard if it's under warranty and you can reliably demonstrate that a channel, or a slot has failed, which you should be able to do by stepping through each available slot.
 
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D

dariens007

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Aug 19, 2009
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all that talk about reseating the cpu doesn't make sense. and page file is on your harddrive not within the ram. be pretty sweet if it was tho lol. i just check my resource meter and it says hardware reserved 1MB and i have 4gb of memory so no that does not sound normal at all, i have win7 pro 64bit. did you try reseating your memory?
 
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I

InSovietRussia

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Aug 3, 2013
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Yea but that didn't fix it. But I may have found the reason. After testing the individual sticks. There was one stick that seemed peculiar. When that stick was installed and I turned my pc on the computer would power up but nothing would be on screen. The other stick works just fine. So this would mean its a bad stick that needs replacement right?
 
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Pinhedd

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Aug 7, 2007
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Yes, you've found your problem.

Hardware reserved should be ~20MiB. If it's in the gigabyte range this indicates a faulty memory module, faulty DIMM slot, or a faulty memory controller.
 
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