# BIOS and Windows see 8Gigs, Cpu-z 16



## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 24, 2012)

So, I have ordered 4 sticks of 4GB each of Corsair Vengeance LP RAM, and used it for about 3 days with no problems at all. Then today they didn't want to boot at 1600Mhz and I had to turn the frequency down to 1333. 
I used the pc for a couple of hours trying to find the issue and I got a BSOD. I thought it was a problem of the RAM and so I tried every stick since the system didn't boot with all four of them in their slots. 
Strangely enough it booted up every time with every of the four sticks. So I put them all in and it powered on with 16GB of RAM. 
The problem is that in the BIOS and in Windows I can see 8gigs of ram, while in CPU-Z it shows 16 of them. 
System specs below, I really have no idea what could be the problem.


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## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 25, 2012)

EDIT: I also tried overvolting to 1.65V with no luck.


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## Athlon2K15 (Jun 25, 2012)

reseat your cpu and cooler,its common with 1156/1155


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## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 25, 2012)

AthlonX2 said:


> reseat your cpu and cooler,its common with 1156/1155



I just tried to re-seat my CPU, it recognizes 8192Mb still.


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## JoMomma (Jun 25, 2012)

*8gb*

Windows Home Premium will only use 8gb memory max.


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## cadaveca (Jun 25, 2012)

JoMomma said:


> Windows Home Premium will only use 8gb memory max.



NO, only home basic has that limit. Home Premium is 16 GB.

INfo here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...=vs.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_7


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## Millennium (Jun 25, 2012)

I got around this same problem on 1156 by just changing the order of the dimms. strange but true.


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## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 25, 2012)

Millennium said:


> I got around this same problem on 1156 by just changing the order of the dimms. strange but true.



Eh, I already tried almost every possible combination of DIMM slots, and none worked. Also, I noticed there is no iGPU option in the BIOS (correlated?) and since a couple of hours my mouse does not respond. Maybe they are completely different problems, but I don't know what to do.
EDIT: Solved the mouse issue by rebooting.


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## cadaveca (Jun 25, 2012)

Issues booting and such either points to the memory being the problem, or the memory controller.

try just two sticks, and see if it is stable. Especially if you bought two kits to get those 4 sticks. It would not be the first time two sets did not like working together.


You'll note that others have already mentinoed the IMC(VCCSA) voltage, if you have it at stock, set it manually to 1.05 V.


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## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 25, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Issues booting and such either points to the memory being the problem, or the memory controller.
> 
> try just two sticks, and see if it is stable. Especially if you bought two kits to get those 4 sticks. It would not be the first time two sets did not like working together.
> 
> ...



The motherboard only detects up to 8192Mb of RAM. It is stable with 1,2,3 or 4 DIMMs on it, but it only recognizes 2 of them apparently.


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## cadaveca (Jun 25, 2012)

niciuffo said:


> The motherboard only detects up to 8192Mb of RAM. It is stable with 1,2,3 or 4 DIMMs on it, but it only recognizes 2 of them apparently.



On the POST screen? Like I said, up VCCSA to 1.05 V(is probably around 0.925 or so stock).

You do understand that you saying the board is reporting 8 GB only, and CPU-Z obviously showing different, means that the board does see all sticks? CPU-Z reads that information from the sticks themselves. IF there is inf for each slot on the SPD tab in CPU-Z, then all sticks are recognized(although they might not all be working properly).


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## INSTG8R (Jun 25, 2012)

Longshot here but I know in the BIOS of my P67 Sabertooth there is a setting under Advanced/System Agent Configuration called Memory Remap Feature. You could try turning that on/off to see if that makes any difference.
Also does the RAM show the correct amount on the POST screen?


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## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 25, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> On the POST screen? Like I said, up VCCSA to 1.05 V(is probably around 0.925 or so stock).
> 
> You do understand that you saying the board is reporting 8 GB only, and CPU-Z obviously showing different, means that the board does see all sticks? CPU-Z reads that information from the sticks themselves. IF there is inf for each slot on the SPD tab in CPU-Z, then all sticks are recognized(although they might not all be working properly).



Set VCCSA to 1.05, no changes. In CPU-z there is information about every DIMM.



INSTG8R said:


> Longshot here but I know in the BIOS of my P67 Sabertooth there is a setting under Advanced/System Agent Configuration called Memory Remap Feature. You could try turning that on/off to see if that makes any difference.
> Also does the RAM show the correct amount on the POST screen?



Memory Remap is on by default, turning it off shows me in Windows that i have 4GB but only 3.45 are usable. In the BIOS it shows 8192Mb of RAM.


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## cadaveca (Jun 25, 2012)

WEll, then there's the option of mis-seated CPU, or bent pin, or bad contact pad on CPU bottom, or some other hardware-related problem.

None of these problems can anyone here really help ya with. I suggest you contact ASUS directly about the problem.


Really weird that it only says 8192 MB in BIOS. I cna make that happen as well, but only when relly pushing things.

One other idea:

In BIOS, under the "tools" tab is the "ASUS SPD Information" listing, make sure that it says "OK" for each slot there. IF you have a FAT32-formatted USB stick, you can press "F12" to save BIOS screenshots to the USB drive. I'd love to see the ASUS SPD Information pages if possible.


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## OneCool (Jun 25, 2012)

Either the memory controller on the CPU lost a channel or the mobo lost a channel.

Try filling just one channel at a time.2 sticks in A then 2 sticks in B channel see what happens


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## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 25, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> WEll, then there's the option of mis-seated CPU, or bent pin, or bad contact pad on CPU bottom, or some other hardware-related problem.
> 
> None of these problems can anyone here really help ya with. I suggest you contact ASUS directly about the problem.
> 
> ...



There you go, everything seems fine and actually the motherboard seems to detect the 4 DIMM:


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## cadaveca (Jun 25, 2012)

niciuffo said:


> There you go, everything seems fine and actually the motherboard seems to detect the 4 DIMM:



OK, so then we are left looknig at Windows for the srouce of the problem, perhaps?

If you cna get into windows, type "msconfig" into the run bar, and press enter. THis screen will popup(although I hit the "BOOT" tab first):







Check and make sure that the advanced options are set like in the image( advanced options accessible by hitting the advanced options button you see in this pic).


Obviously the most important bit there is the "maximum memory" setting.


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## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 25, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> OK, so then we are left looknig at Windows for the srouce of the problem, perhaps?
> 
> If you cna get into windows, type "msconfig" into the run bar, and press enter. THis screen will popup(although I hit the "BOOT" tab first):
> 
> ...



My settings are the same as yours. One thing, Windows says my memory is 8GB but the BIOS too. So I guess it's a problem of the motherboard?


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## cadaveca (Jun 25, 2012)

niciuffo said:


> My settings are the same as yours. One thing, Windows says my memory is 8GB but the BIOS too. So I guess it's a problem of the motherboard?



I'm not sure. It's very odd that the BIOS does recognize all 4 sticks(via the SPD info tool), but doesn't seem to be addressing them properly.  I'd definitely contact ASUS about it, and see what they have to say.


If you can install just one stick, and it is properly recognized, you may also want to consider updating the board's BIOS if you do nto have the most recent. The last three BIOS updates for the P8Z77-V and am working on now all mention improvements to memory compatibility. I checked your SAbertooth, and it is the same, with the most recent BIOS listing (1206) as from June 8th, just a couple of weeks ago.

Sabertooth page here:

http://ca.asus.com/en/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/SABERTOOTH_Z77/#download

If you cannot get a single stick working right, you can use the USB BIOS FlashBack method to flash the BIOS, which works with no memory installed. Directions of how to do that are included with the BIOS download, in PDF format.


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## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 26, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> I'm not sure. It's very odd that the BIOS does recognize all 4 sticks(via the SPD info tool), but doesn't seem to be addressing them properly.  I'd definitely contact ASUS about it, and see what they have to say.
> 
> 
> If you can install just one stick, and it is properly recognized, you may also want to consider updating the board's BIOS if you do nto have the most recent. The last three BIOS updates for the P8Z77-V and am working on now all mention improvements to memory compatibility. I checked your SAbertooth, and it is the same, with the most recent BIOS listing (1206) as from June 8th, just a couple of weeks ago.
> ...



Yeah, the BIOS is updated, but now that I think about it, I remember the RAM working with a previous BIOS update. I could try to downgrade and then contact ASUS. I'll definetly try that tomorrow, thanks for the tips^^


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## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 26, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> I'm not sure. It's very odd that the BIOS does recognize all 4 sticks(via the SPD info tool), but doesn't seem to be addressing them properly.  I'd definitely contact ASUS about it, and see what they have to say.
> 
> 
> If you can install just one stick, and it is properly recognized, you may also want to consider updating the board's BIOS if you do nto have the most recent. The last three BIOS updates for the P8Z77-V and am working on now all mention improvements to memory compatibility. I checked your SAbertooth, and it is the same, with the most recent BIOS listing (1206) as from June 8th, just a couple of weeks ago.
> ...



I tried downgrading and it didn't work. I'm out of ideas right now...


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## Millennium (Jun 26, 2012)

Just wanted to chime in. I had a problem where only 1 stick was used by windows but 2 visible in cpu-z out of 4 slots. 1156 again. Windows resource monitor physical memory bar chart also showed 8gb total but (i think) 4gb hardware reserved. 

See if your windows resource monitor (win7) shows the same?


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## Deleted member 106413 (Jun 26, 2012)

Millennium said:


> Just wanted to chime in. I had a problem where only 1 stick was used by windows but 2 visible in cpu-z out of 4 slots. 1156 again. Windows resource monitor physical memory bar chart also showed 8gb total but (i think) 4gb hardware reserved.
> 
> See if your windows resource monitor (win7) shows the same?



You mean this one?


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## Millennium (Jun 26, 2012)

Ok! something else is going on there then! good luck...


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## GravitySmacked (Jul 17, 2012)

Same issue with my P8Z77-V Pro. I also lost the ability to change the turbo ratio with the 1206 BIOS update so I'm guessing it's related.

I know Asus support told me a future BIOS update would fix the Turbo Ratio issue so I'm thinking it could fix this too.


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## DARKADAM (Jul 17, 2012)

I 'THINK' its the dual channel config thats the issue. Try turning it off..


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## GravitySmacked (Jul 17, 2012)

Agreed, it does seem to be an issue with dual-channel not I'm not aware of anyway to turn it off in the Asus BIOS.


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## Aquinus (Jul 17, 2012)

What happens when you run only 3 DIMMs? Does CPU-Z show one slot empty and does Windows still report 8Gb? I've been reading that a lot of people who had a similar issue resolved it by changing the order of the memory.

Would it happen to be a quad-channel memory kit? (I know the rig doesn't use quad-channel, but you can still throw 4 DIMMs in.)

Also does running it at 1066 make any difference?



GravitySmacked said:


> Agreed, it does seem to be an issue with dual-channel not I'm not aware of anyway to turn it off in the Asus BIOS.


DIMM slots are wired to the CPU socket, you can't run 4 DIMMs on one channel. It is physically impossible with how it's implemented. There should be two different colors for DIMM slots, try two DIMMs on one color and the same DIMMs on the other color. If it fails to boot on one color, the channel isn't working for one reason or another. You can do it this way because the slots, as I said, are wired directly to their respective channels. Memory channels are not switched to the best of my knowledge.


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## GravitySmacked (Jul 18, 2012)

Thanks for your reply.

If I put DIMMS in slots 1 and 3 then it shows 8GB. If I put DIMMS in slots 2 & 4 then it shows 8GB. If I put DIMS in slots 1 & 2 or 3 & 4 it only shows 4GB.

All slots how active in the BIOS monitor section and CPU-Z finds them but both the BIOS and the OS only show 8GB. 

I took the using MeMTest which seems to show that slots 2 & 4 are full but not not mapped.







I think it's an issue with the 1206 BIOS. I've tried rearranging the DIMMS and adding them in a different order with no joy.


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