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i Have 2 8GB sticks of ram installed on my computer but only one will work at a time

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  • RAM
  • Computers
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September 15, 2014 8:09:34 PM

So ive had this issue since i got my computer but am only realizing it now since i had a friend build my computer. i was looking at the parts in my computer the other day and was looking and saw that he had ordered two 8 GB sticks of ram and i remembered having checked and it said i had 8GB of ram installed so i opened up my computer to look and sure enough there were two sticks of 8GB in. so i shutdown my computer to see if it was just loose and then rebooted didnt fix it so i took each individual stick of ram and plugged it in on its own to see if it was just one stick that was broken but when i did so both sticks work separately. But when i try to run them both at the same time only one works. i have tried moving the ram around to different slots which has not solved the issue. the sticks of ram are 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws x DDR3 1600

P.S. i know there are more things i need to put in this description for specs of my computer so whoever answers just tell me what you need

More about : 8gb sticks ram installed computer work time

September 15, 2014 8:23:56 PM

So i need to know which Windows you own: The version (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1) and wether it's a 64 bit or a 32 bit version.

Also, i need to know your motherboard model and maybe your CPU model.
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September 15, 2014 8:27:30 PM

It doesn't matter what OS he is using. If it was a 32-bit OS it would be cut off at under 4GB, usually about 3.2GB. Since he is seeing 8GB it has to be a 64-bit OS.

Do you have 2 or 4 RAM slots on your motherboard? It sounds like maybe one of the slots is broken. I know you mentioned using them one at a time, try with one stick and see if you can boot with it plugged in each memory slot one by one to test if the RAM slots are defective.
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September 15, 2014 8:30:53 PM

IInuyasha74 said:
It doesn't matter what OS he is using. If it was a 32-bit OS it would be cut off at under 4GB, usually about 3.2GB. Since he is seeing 8GB it has to be a 64-bit OS.

Do you have 2 or 4 RAM slots on your motherboard? It sounds like maybe one of the slots is broken. I know you mentioned using them one at a time, try with one stick and see if you can boot with it plugged in each memory slot one by one to test if the RAM slots are defective.


He said he did this already. Also, even if a 32 bit os will only be able to work with 4 Gb of ram, i've seen 32 bit OS stating that they had a 8 GB ram stick and after some windows update, it turned to 4 GB. So if the OS is reading the XMP profile of the Ram and display 8 GB of ram, this might be why it say so instead of calculating itself how much ram it can use.
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September 15, 2014 9:16:48 PM

Or if Win 7 Home Basic 64 - it's limited to 8GB total, similar to Home Premium and a 16GB limit
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September 15, 2014 9:55:37 PM

i have a windows 7 64 bit
ASRock 990FX Extreme4 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
AMD FX-4300 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor
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September 16, 2014 7:03:09 AM

arperez said:
i have a windows 7 64 bit
ASRock 990FX Extreme4 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
AMD FX-4300 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor


Yeah this was also art of why i asked for full windows name. is this home basic ? because it is limited to 8 GB or Ram
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September 16, 2014 7:10:04 AM

Yea I forgot about Home Basic, thats my bad,
but 32-bit never sees 8GB of RAM. IT never sees more than 4GB that is impossible.
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September 16, 2014 4:26:09 PM

it is windows 7 home premium
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