Available ram confusion!!

[esyon]

Hey everyone. i have been building systems for only two years now, but the biggest thing that gets me is the available ram for windows 64. I have read threads among threads and have found a few decent tweeks, but nothing that is permanent. I know for Asus motherboard users there is a simple function in the bios that lets the OS us all ram installed. But being an EVGA user, i dont have the luxury.

first off, i have 12gb installed and currently the system sees 7.99gb. I can switch the ram, restart and it will adjust itself but within a few days, will change back to 7.99 or 10gb, ususally one of those two. i work heavily in the graphics field and majority of my ram goes to photoshop as i do vehicle wraps and billboards to scale. i am also running an i7-920 at 2.66ghz. recently i built a second system to play around with for smaller files at an off site office. its an amd quad core 1.8 ghz and the board supports 8 gb ram. i have 6 installed and from day one has never posted any available ram message?!?! is this an intel thing? kinda frustrating as i put a lot of time and effort into my home system and it gives me the most problem yet the off site system is flawless.

i am considering some variables that could effect it. i have 4 sticks at 1600 and 2 at 1333. just misread the packaging when i bought them. the bios reports on stock settings 1066.
if i attempt to up the speed in anyway, i get BSOD or even less available ram. now, if i use turbo mode to 3.2ghz with evga dummy o.c., i get bsod. i dont have to have an oc'd system, just want the ram to work efficiently. memtest confirmed all sticks were well, i even went as far as switching motherboards and same thing has happened. any suggestions would be much appreciated!!!


i7-920 @ 2.66 stock settings
320 hd sata 6 - apps and OS
320 hd sata 3 - backup
640 hd sata 3 x2
2tb hd sata 3 - system back up
h50 cpu cooler
corsair 600 psu
corsair 12gb ram
evga x58 sli x3

 

[Hawkeye22]

If the frequencies (1600 vs 1333) are different, then the timings are most likely different too. Dual channel and triple channel memory works the best when it's part of a kit. Mixing and matching can work, but is more difficult to setup and more difficult to OC.

Also, you say you have 4 sticks of 1600 and 2 sticks of 1333. So, to get 12gig I assume that is 4x2gig + 2x2gig. Mixing and matching ram sizes can also complicate a setup. For triple channel you'd want a 3x4gig kit.

 

[RetiredChief]

^ Concur, the x58 MBs utilize triple channel mode. If you stick 2 x 2 (1600 + 1 x2 (1333) in each tri channel sockets, you will get single channel mode and or a channel dropping out.) Putting 3 x 2 (1600) in Cahnnel A and 1 x 2 (1600) + 2 x 2 (1333) in Channel B is likely to again result in single channel mode and or 1 bank of memory dropping out. Also need to match the voltage level!!

2 Choices, 1 But 3 x 4 for Channel A (Best option), or replace the 2 sticks of 1333 with 2 Sticks of ram that are identical to the 4 sticks of 1600. As Hawkeye22 indicated it is always best to buy the ram as a matched set and for trichannel that means 3 sticks..

 

[esyon]

thanks guys. i guess i'll have to go ram shopping. Thanks for the advice. I'll let you know how it turns out

 

[Mrthorp]

at least DDR3 RAM prices are getting lower and lower!

 

[esyon]

THANKFULLY!!. My other system takes ddr2 and i have paid more for (4gb) ram than (6gb) of ddr3

 

[esyon]

Best answer selected by esyon.