Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Ram slot problem, help me please

Aug 31, 2017 11:33AM PDT

Hi there! i'm new to this site, i signed up here just to ask for a little bit of help so i would much appreciate if any of you could help me with this. I have 2 sticks of ram, 4gb and 2gb, i used them both but only the 4gb is picked up. i tried removing both and using one stick at a time on each slot, turns out that one ram slot is not working properly. i went to another site, asked them why that happens and they said i have a dual channel motherboard so i have to get 2 rams that are the same voltage and are exactly the same so it works properly, but i still dont get why one ram slot works and the other one doesnt. and one last thing, if i had a ram stick thats exactly the same as the one of 4gb that i have now will it work fine or will i have to buy a new kit? please help me, in case you need more i screenshotted both rams on CPU-Z

RAM Slot 1 :https://prnt.sc/ge0rjn
RAM Slot 2 :https://prnt.sc/ge0rqc

My mobo is a asus m5a78l-m lx
gpu is gtx 750ti
cpu is athlon x4 3.30ghz
hdd 500gb

thank you very much in advance

EDITS [Moderator]:

And yes i have a 64bit windows and when i go into system propreties it says 6gb (4gb usable)

And i already updated my bios and did the msconfig thing and the virtual memory one too.

The main issue here is that one of my ram slots dont pick any of my ram sticks, but the other one picks both. is this normal because of its "dual channel" thing? anyway i bought a 4gb ram stick that is exactly the same that i have right now.. i'm hoping that it will work. please tell me if u think it will work, if its a dual channel issue or a direct mobo issue..

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Clarification Request
Left out a detail or two.
Aug 31, 2017 11:43AM PDT
- Collapse -
Heyy :D
Aug 31, 2017 12:09PM PDT

I Have windows 7 SP1 X64 Professional. The issue here is not the OS but most likely the ram slot. My question was: I have 2 ram slots, both together dont work since i have one 4gb and one 2gb ram stick and my mobo is dual. i tried each ram with each slot and only one ram slot works with both ram sticks, so im wondering if here the issue is that i need the dual channel memory ( two same memory sticks ) to be "on" so two same sticks at the same time to make the two ram slots work properly. thank you for answering Grin

- Collapse -
OK, so it's the ram slot.
Aug 31, 2017 12:18PM PDT

That means a new motherboard. Simple.

I had hopes of a Web Speccy to check out other possibilities but a bad slot is a bad slot.

And no, not always required to be the same make, model stick but I never mix because my clients are picky about BSODs and more.

- Collapse -
Oh dear!
Aug 31, 2017 12:20PM PDT

Oh, so i ****** up by buying a 4gb ram stick that matched the one that i had now, wasted money for nothing, love it

Edited your foul language.
Moderator.

Post was last edited on August 31, 2017 12:37 PM PDT

- Collapse -
Making speccy
Aug 31, 2017 12:23PM PDT

im making a speccy, gonna send it as soon as i ended it, maybe its just an os issue idk anymore

- Collapse -
The speccy
Aug 31, 2017 12:26PM PDT
- Collapse -
Speccy
Aug 31, 2017 5:43PM PDT

Speccy is showing both ram slots work.

The reason it shows single channel is because the 2 ram sticks are different.

So you need a matched pair to enable dual channel.

Speccy is also showing your hdd is going south....replace that soon.

- Collapse -
It's unclear for this motherboard.
Aug 31, 2017 6:03PM PDT

It appears this motherboard is picky about sticks according to folk that mixed before.

- Collapse -
Ram
Aug 31, 2017 6:19PM PDT

The op starts with a ram slot that does not work.
That does not seem to be true.
Then they move to single channel/dual channel.
That's because of the mixed sticks.

As for what the mobo reports or windows see's that's a different issue

- Collapse -
I get that.
Sep 1, 2017 7:45AM PDT

Let's hope they get a pair of supported sticks in there soon.

- Collapse -
Answer
Speccy looks OK. Remember I assume you know about
Aug 31, 2017 12:49PM PDT

Here are the prior complaints about your combination.

https://www.google.com/search?q=M5A78L-M+LX+4+out+of+6+gb+ram&oq=M5A78L-M+LX+4+out+of+6+gb+ram&gs_l=psy-ab.3...1886.8984.0.9329.18.18.0.0.0.0.210.1783.10j6j1.17.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.10.950...0j0i22i30k1j33i22i29i30k1j33i21k1j33i160k1.CgAiDAAXc4Q

So folk have reported that mixing sticks does result in less than the total RAM. Seems to be how this board works.

But you claim you have a bad slot. That is, if you use one stick at a time. Just one in one slot, a slot consistently fails. That to me is a bad slot. Maybe the board is fine and it's the same thing everyone reported when they mix sticks like this?

- Collapse -
Thank you
Aug 31, 2017 1:17PM PDT

Well, i guess testing the 4gb of ram is my last chance, tomorrow hopefully i will receive it normally with an ssd, lets just hope it will work, thank you Happy