Memory problem

[ebarone]

I apologize in advance for the lack of screenshots in this post

 

So I went to my dad's house the other day and he started yelling at me, apparently I only put 4GB of DDR3 Kingston HyperX RAM into his new system. BS I told him, opened his case, and showed him all three 2GB sticks sitting there happily.

Long story short, Windows only sees 4GB of the RAM, and when I booted to the BIOS, the BIOS also only sees 4GB. However, after loading up CPU-z, it reports that there are 6GB running in triple channel mode.

 

I tried removing one stick from slot C1... 2GB reported in Windows and BIOS, 4GB dual channel reported in CPU-z.

 

I tried removing the middle stick (B1) and the end stick (C1).... 2GB reported in Windows and BIOS, 2GB single channel reported in CPU-z.

 

I repopulated C1 with the stick that had been in B1.... 4GB in Windows and BIOS, 4GB dual channel in CPU-z. This ensured that it wasnt simply a bad RAM stick in slot B1.

 

So what it seems like is there is a bad center memory slot, and normally I would just say RMA it and problem solved. However, CPU-z sees that there are three sticks installed! How is this possible?? Is the board actually broken or is this a fixable problem?

 

Adding to the problem, the RAM is rated for 2000MHz, however setting it to anything higher than 1333MHz causes the system to not boot.

 

Specs:

i7 975 @ 3.33GHz (not OC'd)

6GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-2000 @ 1333MHz

Asus P6X58D Premium

HD 5870

Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB

 

If screens are requested I can get them. Thanks for any insight!

[sack_patrol]

I apologize in advance for the lack of screenshots in this post

 

So I went to my dad's house the other day and he started yelling at me, apparently I only put 4GB of DDR3 Kingston HyperX RAM into his new system. BS I told him, opened his case, and showed him all three 2GB sticks sitting there happily.

Long story short, Windows only sees 4GB of the RAM, and when I booted to the BIOS, the BIOS also only sees 4GB. However, after loading up CPU-z, it reports that there are 6GB running in triple channel mode.

 

I tried removing one stick from slot C1... 2GB reported in Windows and BIOS, 4GB dual channel reported in CPU-z.

 

I tried removing the middle stick (B1) and the end stick (C1).... 2GB reported in Windows and BIOS, 2GB single channel reported in CPU-z.

 

I repopulated C1 with the stick that had been in B1.... 4GB in Windows and BIOS, 4GB dual channel in CPU-z. This ensured that it wasnt simply a bad RAM stick in slot B1.

 

So what it seems like is there is a bad center memory slot, and normally I would just say RMA it and problem solved. However, CPU-z sees that there are three sticks installed! How is this possible?? Is the board actually broken or is this a fixable problem?

 

Adding to the problem, the RAM is rated for 2000MHz, however setting it to anything higher than 1333MHz causes the system to not boot.

 

Specs:

i7 975 @ 3.33GHz (not OC'd)

6GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-2000 @ 1333MHz

Asus P6X58D Premium

HD 5870

Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB

 

If screens are requested I can get them. Thanks for any insight!

if your system doesn't boot on anything higher than 1333, while the ram is rated for 2kMhz, then the mobo is most likely at fault here.

If you happen to have another similar mobo try to replace it and see the results. Or replace the RAM if you have extra. That way you'll know exactly what's going on.

[dihartnell]

if your system doesn't boot on anything higher than 1333, while the ram is rated for 2kMhz, then the mobo is most likely at fault here.

If you happen to have another similar mobo try to replace it and see the results. Or replace the RAM if you have extra. That way you'll know exactly what's going on.

 

 

Can you try the ram in a different system? IF it shows as 6GB in that then its likely a mobo problem. I don't know that board well but is there any Bios option that may cause some ram to be masked in Windows?

[ebarone]

It would be far too big a PITA to get it into another system, but I did try using different sticks in the non-suspect slots... always got 4GB no matter what combination of the three sticks I used. Its not a big deal if its a mobo problem, the computer runs fine on 4GB, I'm just very curious as to why CPU-z would report 6GB installed, but *nowhere* else does the system report that.

[cjloki]

It would be far too big a PITA to get it into another system, but I did try using different sticks in the non-suspect slots... always got 4GB no matter what combination of the three sticks I used. Its not a big deal if its a mobo problem, the computer runs fine on 4GB, I'm just very curious as to why CPU-z would report 6GB installed, but *nowhere* else does the system report that.

which operating system is that ebo ?

[ebarone]

S'pose I should have mentioned that... Windows 7 Ultimate x64

[sully990]

Try using only 1 stick of ram and clear the rtc also when doing so change ram to diff slot i had the same problem before and this worked for me

[ebarone]

The motherboard actually died, I guess that was inevitable... Very curious, but its been replaced with a known-to-be-working Gigabyte board, so all is well Thanks for the insight everyone.

 

sully, how would I clear the RTC if I was going to go down that route? Is there a jumper or something?