NEED HELP! New PC crashing and freezing/restarting! Only Half ram 'usable'!

TheDavinator · Aug 27, 2015

Hey guys, I have recently built my first pc and am running into a few problems.

Firstly under PC Info it reads that I have 16GB or RAM installed but only 8GB usable. for this I have tried swapping the slots the sticks are in and it works for now but fails again eventually.

Secondly, I often have crashes or freezes which I then have to manually reboot from. There are no blue screens and sometimes it can happen every few minutes or other times just when Im playing a game. Half the time it just freezes and the other half it reboots on its own. One time when it froze there was a horrible static sound from the monitor speakers.

These problems are getting very frustrating so any help is greatly appreciated.

PC Specs:
Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-UD3P
Processor: AMD FX-8350
GPU: XFX R9 280X
RAM: HyperX Fury 16gb 1866Mhz
PSU: Corsair CX850M
CPU Cooler: Corsair H105
Storage: A 240GB Kingston V300 SSD + Seagate Barracuda 2tb

All this fits in a Cooler Master N600.

Again, any help is GREATLY appreciated.

PS. I have till the end of the month when I go back to school.

g1abhi · Aug 27, 2015

what Os are you using. Depends on that too. http://www.zdnet.com/article/max-memory-limits-for-64-bit-windows-7/

For your crashes , monitor and report the GPU and CPU temperatures. You can use MSI afterburner to monitor the gpu temps. Next check if the PSU is running cool or not , is it blowing abnormally hot air.

TheDavinator · Aug 27, 2015

Windows 8.1 64-Bit, BTW i have updated the first post as the ram issue is more common now.

And the GPU and CPU run at less than 30'C while idle and I will check under load now

The psu seems normal to me

TheDavinator · Aug 27, 2015

No crashes when i ran Prime95 and Furmark test seperately and GPU temp rose to a steady 67'C and I couldnt find CPU temp

TheDavinator · Aug 27, 2015

I was able to play rocket league for a good while with no crashes etc but only noticed after that the ram had gone back to only 8gb usable, this is very annoying and is probably my main problem for the moment.

g1abhi · Aug 27, 2015

Remove your GPu and use your system with the integrated graphics. Then see if the problem persists.
edit : oops fx doesnt have IGP . can you arrange a different graphics card for testing. You can also try to uninstall and reinstall the GPU driver. They might not be functioning well.

TheDavinator · Aug 27, 2015

I probably wont be able to get hold of another card (i live in the country) but ill try both suggestions, thanks
Also it hasnt crashed in a while now so I dont really know how to test it, Its also really the ram is the problem that i most want fixed right now despite the thread title

Update: Ram resets to 16gb usable after restart but after a while changes to only 8gb usable

Oh..great it just froze again. *sigh*

g1abhi · Aug 27, 2015

Did you buy the ram in pairs or individually?
try using a single stick at a time and see if it is stable ? MAy be one is not working well.

TheDavinator · Aug 27, 2015

I bought the sticks together and I will try running only one but how do I know which one is bad? Should I run memtest?

g1abhi · Aug 27, 2015

just use it for a day . If it runs fine , then its clean. So in 2 days , you will know.

TheDavinator · Aug 27, 2015

Thanks, I will get back to you on this in a couple of days.

Thanks a billion

TheDavinator · Aug 28, 2015

One ram stick worked perfect yesterday, however the second one froze it within 5 minutes, Ill run it a bit more to be sure but I think that is it

TheDavinator · Aug 28, 2015

Ok, not so confident now... no more crashes even after running a torture test on Prime95

g1abhi · Aug 28, 2015

keep using the suspect ram only for few days , then once ascertained , get it RMA'd . OR you can even file for it now.

g1abhi · Aug 28, 2015

Use the same RAM port for both modules just in case.

TheDavinator · Aug 28, 2015

I thought that it might be only working with one stick and not 2 so i googled that and found this: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1720186/freezes-stick-ram-installed.html and did what they said there and raised the voltage by 0.05 with the second stick.
So far it has held up and was put under another Prime95 test

g1abhi · Aug 28, 2015

i cant open that link somehow can you copy paste the related posts.

TheDavinator · Aug 28, 2015

No crashes for the rest of the day. Thanks g1abhi, great help!

NEED HELP! New PC crashing and freezing/restarting! Only Half ram 'usable'!

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