GA-X58A-UD5 and Corsair XMS3 12GB

[dpack_1]

Hi there,

New to the board and just wanted to pose a quick question, i've looked around a bit and not found exactly what i'm looking for but it's to do with 12gb of RAM only registering as 6gb usable in the OS.

I have a GA-X58A-UD5 (not sure if it's R1 or R2) and Corsair XMS3 12GB (HX3X12G1333C9).

Bios picks up the RAM as 1066mhz yet the manufacturer states it's 1333mhz. Also, the timings read 8-8-8-20 and again the manufacturer states it should be 9-9-9-24.

I manually changed the settings and it picked up all 12gb just fine, but then after having to reformat my OS installation again it did something weird in not picking up my SSD system drive, i reset the CMOS and defaulted back to factory settings and now it finds my SSD just fine but no matter what i do with the RAM settings it just will not register all 12gb in POST but sees it in the OS, but with 6gb usable.

I'm running Win 7 Professional 64gb if it makes any difference.

Any advice on what i should be doing to fix this would be great.

Thanks!

Darren

[Dark Mantis]

Hi Darren
Have you used the XMP setting for the memory in the BIOS?

[dpack_1]

No, the only setting i touched was the DRAM Timing Selectable, set to Quick and manually input the the timings suggested by Corsair, and i set the System Memory Multiplier up to 1333 instead of 1066 (i 'think' that's either 8 or 10?)

[Dark Mantis]

I just checked up on your memory and it doesn't have an XMP option which is a shame. This is yours if I am not mistaken(at the bottom of the tripple channel): http://www.corsair.com/products/corei7/default.aspx

By the way quick edit on the "UD5"

[dpack_1]

Yep, that's what i've got.

[Dark Mantis]

Right, what BIOS version are you running and what revision of your motherboard is it?

[dpack_1]

Mobo is Rev. 1

Bios is X58A-UD5-F1

[Dark Mantis]

Right well that it a very old BIOS version for that board. It is now up to F6i which is  a beta version but should be stable as it's posted on the official website or the F5. Any way I would recommend updating the BIOS.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3304&dl=1#dl

That may well solve your problem with the memory if not come babk and post again.

[dpack_1]

Ok, i'm pretty good with most computer related stuff but never flashed a bios before.

Downloaded the file from the link you gave, extracted that and it gives me 3 files, an autoexec, the bios file and a flashspi executable.

Do i just run the flashspi or is there some other way of doing this?

[Dark Mantis]

Right. unzip the files onto a usb pen drive formatted as FAT32. Insert the pendrive into the USB port and then reboot. Press the"End" key as it is POSTing and you will be taken into the BIOS flashing utility Q_Flash. From there just folow the prompts and DO NOT TURN OFF THE POWER under any circumstances. It will look for the pendrive with the file on it and use that to update the BIOS. Believe me it is not as difficult as it sounds.

[dpack_1]

Ok, bios updated.

Still didnt give the proper readings for my ram so i set it back to 9-9-9-24 and 1333, but the new bios also gives a different read out.

It sees that there is 2048mb of RAM installed in slots 1 through 6 but it is only enabling slots 1 through 3, ignoring 4, 5 and 6. Like it knows that there is RAM installed but not enabling them slots to be used?

[Dark Mantis]

Well done, another thing under your belt. Did you load the optimised BIOS default settings afterwards?

[dpack_1]

Yep, just cleared the cmos and went in and reset to optimised again to be sure.

This is how i have things set at the moment:


You can see in this image how 3 of the slots aren't being used.

[Dark Mantis]

Well I have been checking all your readings  and it seems ok but the only thing I can think of is under the turnaround settings (which are set to auto at the moment) there is the option to change setting for "on the same rank" from 1 to 2. Try that for each Channe lA,B & C. save and exit. Reboot and see if that helps. If not return the settings to  auto.

[dpack_1]

Still no luck.

Tried setting the turnaround from 1 to 2 on both read and writing for all 3 channels. Made no difference what so ever.

It's weird how this was reading 12gb just yesterday fine and without any hardware changes it's now stuck at enabling just half of it.