13 of 16gb hardware reserved on W10 64bit

Andrew_293

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May 8, 2017
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Hi,

I've had the issue a while and originally believed it was due to the RAM I had installed being incompatible (Kingston predator DDR3, 2x4gb @1600. I didn't check the list when speccing my mobo and only found out it wasn't on there when searching for a fix) So I waited until I could put some money aside for compatible RAM. in the process I went up to 16gb from 8.

I now have the same issue but instead of 5gb hardware reserved, it's showing 13gb hardware reserved. I have unchecked max memory, updated my BIOS and lost count of how many other things I've tried/settings I've changed.

Windows 10 home (64)

ms-7721

AMD 6800k

RX 470 4gb

Corsair Vengeance DDR3 2x8gb 2133mhz


Thanks in advance.
 

Andrew_293

Prominent
May 8, 2017
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Thanks for the reply.

You mean physically swap the ram round? I have tried that, unfortunately to no avail.

Sorry, what do you mean by mother being wrong?

Cheers



 


I mean the motherboard could be bad.
 

Andrew_293

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May 8, 2017
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I had a horrible feeling I was going down that road. Looks like the next stop then. Thanks for your help
 

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
There are quite a few potential causes:
1. The obvious, 32bit vs 64bit 'mistake'..... you're being capped <4GB, which is usually a tell-tale sign of 32bit...... but you sound like you're sure it's x64.

2. The A10's can reserve a substantial chunk of memory (in the BIOS) for the iGPU aspect. As you're running a discreet GPU, disable that if you can, or lower it to the lowest system memory reservation it'll accept.

3. Have you updated your BIOS? There are a few instances of those same numbers (13 of 16) being reserved, and a BIOS update rectified the issue.

4. There could just be a glitch in your OS detection for some reason. I'd look to a clean OS install before you look to a defective motherboard.
 

Andrew_293

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May 8, 2017
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Thanks, Barty.

It's certainly telling me it's a 64bit OS.. Though I feel like I'm being lied to right now!

Have tried disabling internal gfx and lowering to minimum shared memory but the result was the same.

Unfortunately, yes. BIOS also up to date.

Good plan with the clean install first. Certainly the cheaper way!.. It's Windows 10 Home. PC came with 8 originally and I took the free upgrade. Don't suppose that rings any alarm bells? Or maybe it's worth buying a hard copy of pro? ..Just a thought.

Thanks for all the advice
 


If you upgraded, than you can easily just reinstall Windows 10 no issue, It's a good free test to see if it works.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
 
In addition to the suggestion to clean install Windows, how much memory is hardware reserved with just 1 stick installed? I recently installed a discreet GPU into my rig, upped the RAM from 4 GB to 8GB, and my hardware reserved RAM is 2.4MB (Yes Megabytes, not GB). AMD FX 6300 cpu here. Even before the hardware reserved was less than 1 GB. (Oh, I also did a clean install of Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit, coming from Windows 8 Pro 32 bit).
 

Andrew_293

Prominent
May 8, 2017
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Doesn't seem to matter how much RAM I install, it always shows 3gb usable and the rest hardware reserved.