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General discussion

New ram not detected

by G1177 Feb 9, 2010 7:21PM PST

Before I purchased my new ram I had 4Gb of DDR3 Ram, with two extra slots available I decided to buy an extra 4Gb of the same exact ram I already had for a total of 8GB of ram. When I installed the new ram I then booted my computer up and noticed it only showed 4096 total physical memory in the bios settings menu. I proceeded to start windows and my welcome screen indicated that I had a total of 8.00GB of ram. I start my CPU/RAM monitor and it indicated I had only 4GB. I noticed no performance increase at all so my computer is not detecting my new ram.
How can I correct this problem?

My specs are
-Intel i5-750
-4x2GB Crucial DDR3 Ram
-MSI P55-CD53 motherboard
-BFG Geforce GTX 295
-320GB Seagate HDD
-Corsair TX750 power supply

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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Re: new RAM
by Kees Bakker Feb 9, 2010 7:37PM PST

The BIOS setting screen should show what it sees. And Windows can't see more. The motherboard specs say it supports up to 16 GB, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Mentioning the amount of RAM on the welcome screen isn't a standard Windows function, as far as I know, and it's not clear what your CPU/RAM monitor is. So I can't comment on that.

What's your exact OS: what version of Vista and 32 or 64 bit? You didn't tell and it might be relevant.

I'd start with download memtest86 (free) and see what it tells you about the memory. If it doesn't see 8 GB then either it's incompatible RAM or bad RAM or the motherboard doesn't live up to its specs.

You'll only note a performance increase going from 4 GB to 8 GB in certain circumstances. And it's not clear either if those were present during your performance test and how exact that test was (did you measure the milliseconds with and without that extra RAM?). So that doesn't say much.

Kees

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reply
by G1177 Feb 9, 2010 8:02PM PST

By welcome screen I mean the pop-up item titled, "Welcome" that appears after you log in.


My OS is Vista Ultimate 64 bit.
I already did a memtest, it did two tests and no problems appeared.
When I go to my control panel and view my system it also says I have 8GB. It is compatible because it is the same exact ram that worked in a 4GB setup. I also know somebody with the same configuration.


I also forgot to add that after installing I couldn't get windows to boot all the way. After turning the computer on windows would start loading and then a blue screen with error message would appear and quickly go away before I could read it and then the computer would restart and ask me if I wanted to boot with the last settings that worked or boot in safe mode. I chose boot with previous settings and the process just kept looping. I tried removing the new ram and just booted with the original setup, windows still didn't work. I then decided to boot in safe mode. I had to adjust my screen resolution in safe mode and after I did that I had to reboot, after I rebooted everything worked fine but my original problem still exists.

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What I'd get fixed first is the BIOS display.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Feb 9, 2010 10:03PM PST

It does NOT matter what Windows or test programs report as the BIOS may have not initialized the memory controller for the ram properly.

Until the BIOS reports 8GB, expect trouble.

Ask the machine's maker to check if there is a bios update available.
Bob

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