Windows 10 only using half of available ram

yRaz

Posts: 6,311   +9,236
I don't know when this started, but my windows 10 install is only using 16 of my 32gigs of ram. All sticks show up in the bios and I'm able to use all 32 gigs when booted into linux but windows 10 doesn't use them. When I open CPU-Z in windows 10 I can see all the sticks of ram. I tried disabling automatic memory virtualization and that didn't seem to do anything
 
Shut the computer down, remove the CPU cooler, remove the CPU. Look at the CPU, check the pins in the motherboard while you're looking at it.

Replace the CPU and restart.
The sockets are fickle.
 
[HEADING=3]Crinkles Cubeputer[/HEADING]

So I reseated the CPU and even tried a 1700x I had sitting around, same problem. Further, I borrowed 4x16GB(64GB) DDR4 2066 of ram from a friend and found that I was still only able to access 32GB with 32GB hardware reserved. I tried different ram in different slot configurations. long story short, anything in the even number slots(2 and 4) weren't usable and anything in the odd number slots(1 and 3) were usable. I'm going to go ahead and call this a bad motherboard with. At least slots 1&3 still work and I can still run dual channel ram in those slots.

The ram I currently have in my machine is rated at 3866 but I can't run it higher than 2800. It's been tested in my friends 9900k machine and can run much higher than that. We had it stable in his machine running at 4200 so I'm going to say the ram is still good. I'm going to call this 1)a limitation of first gen Ryzen and 2)a symptom of a motherboard failing. It's a b350 chipset if any of you are wondering and has basically been running 24/7 since March 2018.
 
anything in the even number slots(2 and 4) weren't usable and anything in the odd number slots(1 and 3) were usable. I'm going to go ahead and call this a bad motherboard

It's been a while, but there you go. Sorry the board isn't working but the other parts are usable, you saved some money there. I'm like everyone else, it's tiring to be replacing faulty parts in my own pc. If you ever had a 1366 motherboard with Intels x58 chipset, some ran triple-channel and they were very hard on memory. The last one I had, borked on USB at start, I ditched the platform after that Asus board tanked. But it had the same hassle with memory, previous to that the cpu needed reseating.
It's just 'computers' man, small errors can make life miserable.
I'm glad to hear you got it worked out, post an update if you can!
 
It ran with 16gb so it had to be a 64bit OS. Windows 32 has address space for 4gb, the installed 'user' amount is less (3.1-3.5gb).
 
Windows 32 bit won't show 4Gb of ram being used. It's always a bit less. Don't know why but that's how it is.
 
Late arrival here and this may be a "stupid" question but you said: you were: "able to use all 32 gigs when booted into Linux", so would that not be an OS issue not the mobo? I have been using Linux working on 6 yrs, & dual booting with Win 10 less & I have seen where Linux worked where 10 had issues (cannot remember exact issues right now) Just a thought.
 
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