4.1gb of memory reserved for hardware

Tome91

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Apr 23, 2014
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Hi everyone,

I've run into this one problem recently. I did notice for a while that my PC was quite slow at times even though it should not be, and today I saw that there is 4.1 GB of memory reserved for hardware somehow. This was not present in the past, I'm quite sure of that.

3Eyg21Y.jpg


As you can see now, there is about 500 400 too 600 MB available, which is sort of okay-ish if I'm not doing anything, but playing games I'm definitely noticing a big drop in PC performance.

I don't know how long this has been happening though.

I've tried the following: - exchange the positions of RAM sticks, change the order from first and third slot to second and forth, unplug the PSU and plug it back in and then reseat memory sticks. I also did windows memory diagnostic which showed no problems, did sfc /scannow (heard it helped someone) but again didn't show any issues.

My build is:

Corsair cx 460 psu
ASUS M5A97 r2.0 mobo
MSI GTX 970 gpu
AMD FX-8320 cpu
Transcend DDR3 4gb x2

Both of the ram sticks which are the same, are compatible with my motherboard, I've checked that when I bought them. They worked perfect for a long time.

Can anyone help me fix it please? anything I did wrong? Perhaps something to do with BIOS? Could my new GPU be the reason of that? I've only gotten this GTX 970 recently, but I feel this has been an issue a bit longer even though I can't say for sure.

Thanks in advance. For any more information please ask.


 

Tome91

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Apr 23, 2014
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I'm running 64 bit version.

On the ram part, I'm very much positive they are not incompatible since they've been working just perfect for a while now. Issue started when they were in the original slots where they worked, and I have since changed their position around to see if that helps, but it didn't.
 

Tome91

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Apr 23, 2014
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Hi,

I did read through at least 5-6 of them, and I listened to suggestions posted in those threads, but as I mention in my OP, it sadly did not help.

 
It could be your integrated graphics hogging way more RAM than it needs, if you go into the BIOS, there should be an option to turn the igpu's RAM usage down to 128-256MB (you have a 970 so turn the IGPU down as low as possible since you probably aren't using it).
 

Tome91

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Apr 23, 2014
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Ok, I will try that. Sadly I won't have time for the next couple of hours, but when I do I will come back and give you an answer if it helped or not.

In the meantime, if anyone has some other suggestions to what may the problem, please feel free to say.
 

Tome91

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Apr 23, 2014
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Hey,

I went to my BIOS, but I couldn't find an option to do what you suggested. Do you know where exactly that should be located?
 

Tome91

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Apr 23, 2014
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Update:

I tried removing memory sticks and then putting one at a time.

With one of them my PC will start and 4 GB are available with 101 MB reserved for hardware. Meanwhile, when I only have the other stick in my PC won't start at all. I can assume that one stick is faulty, but why does it show 8 GB installed when I have both of them in and PC works? Shouldn't it be only showing 4 GB in total since the second one is apparently faulty?
 

Tome91

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Apr 23, 2014
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I did, already installed it as you suggested, put the memory sticks in the correct slots, but nothing changed sadly.
 

Tome91

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Apr 23, 2014
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Yes, basically that. With one of them it's booting up and working, with the other one the PC won't boot up.

So I assumed it's faulty, but why would it then say that 8 GB of ram is installed when I put them both in and start the PC?