12gb ram 7.99gb usable. why?

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killerchef04

New Member
i have a x58 ftw3 mobo, intel core i7 960 cpu, and 12gb triple channel corsair dominator ddr3 1600 ram
windows says i have 12gb memory installed but only 7.99gb is usable. how can i use all 12gb?
 
Hmm thats a tricky one, you have a 64bit OS I assume, you have the latest drivers and Windows UPdates. The latest BIOS. Is there something in BIOS that relates to memory remapping?
 
When you say usable, if you go to task manager (Shift + CTRL + Esc) and go to the performance tab, what does it say under Physical Memory for Total, Cached, Available and Free?
 
bigfellla said:
Hmm thats a tricky one, you have a 64bit OS I assume, you have the latest drivers and Windows UPdates. The latest BIOS. Is there something in BIOS that relates to memory remapping?
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yea, ive been playing around with it, but same result. ive tried almost every configuration, resetting the bios. reseating the ram. ive been on a couple different sites that say this is a common problem with the x58 motherboards.
 
i'm assuming you're using 6 sticks of ram for the triple channel. you might have a dead stick since you are getting 8gb of ram. one dead stick means that whole channel isn't running so you'd lose 4gb of ram. i'd try checking each stick before you mess with bios :) i ordered some g skill ram a few weeks back and send hours figuring out why i could only use 8/12gb of ram. then i found out one (which happened to be the last stick of ram i tested) to be DOA
 
dtiao7eb said:
i'm assuming you're using 6 sticks of ram for the triple channel. you might have a dead stick since you are getting 8gb of ram. one dead stick means that whole channel isn't running so you'd lose 4gb of ram. i'd try checking each stick before you mess with bios :) i ordered some g skill ram a few weeks back and send hours figuring out why i could only use 8/12gb of ram. then i found out one (which happened to be the last stick of ram i tested) to be DOA
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no im using 3 4gb sticks, how would i test it?
 
Look in your Bios for "Memory Remap" OR "Memory Remapping"...enable it if its there and apply changes.

See if this makes any diffrence. :)
 
Last edited:
Memory Remap is called Memory Low Gap in the BIOS. This is located under the Memory Feature in the BIOS under Frequency/Voltage Control
 
did you update your bios/firmware? be advised, some websites break down each driver in different sections. so check the website for a ram fix of some sort or just download all the latest drivers/bios update available for your mobo
 
Don't know if you already tried,but...does BIOS report you have 12 GB of RAM or 8? If it reports all 12 then your RAM sticks are fine.Usually in the BIOS you have options to either regulate RAM frequency manually or put BIOS to do that automatically.So find that and see what all options you have and let us know.
 
Reset your BIOS to factory defaults. I had that same problem when I built my computer. After quick reset in the settings it restarted my computer and recognized all of it.


Worked for me.
 
S.T.A.R.S. said:
Don't know if you already tried,but...does BIOS report you have 12 GB of RAM or 8? If it reports all 12 then your RAM sticks are fine.Usually in the BIOS you have options to either regulate RAM frequency manually or put BIOS to do that automatically.So find that and see what all options you have and let us know.
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base memory 639k
extended memory 8387584k
total memory 8388608k
im guessing that its only reading 8gb

the bios options are
memory frequency
memory spd
channel interleave setting
rank interleave setting
memory low gap

and then all the parameters
 
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