Usable RAM on X58-UD3R (rev 1.0)

[Deltauren]

Bit of a question for the history experts, maybe:

Have an X58-UD3R (rev 1.0) with an i920 which I built myself and trying to stretch out its life a little more before going Ryzen. (Waiting for the memory issues to be 100% sorted).

I'm using bios version F5. (For some reason cannot flash the bios to a more recent version using Q-Flash - just get checksum errors, and have to restore from the back-up bios)

Windows 74 64bit.

Have 4 x 2gb RAM in 4 slots.

Purchased an extra 2gb of RAM - (tried it in both of the remaining slots) - and it is not recognised in the BIOS, but it's described in Windows as (10.0gb installed, 8.0gb usable).

(Have a discrete graphics card, (and there's no internal graphics on this board anyway), so it isn't that which is reserving the ram.)



Motherboard memory talks of options for 1,2,4 and 6 and not 5. Will my problem be fixed by installing an extra 2gb, i.e. using all 6 slots of RAM?


Cheers.

(in my Ryzen excitement, I accidentally posted this in the Mb/AMD forum first. This is a transfer)

[ElectroStingz]

Hello,

If you were to try your working RAM in only slots 5 and 6 does it work?

• So take out all your RAM
• Place 2GB in slot 5
• Place 2GB in slot 6

Yes means the CPU memory channel / DIMM slots are working.

Sometimes when you mix RAM that are of different specifications it doesn't work but Windows will detect the SPD info, so you see 10GB but 8GB usable.

What are the memory specs for the old and new stick? (model / part numbers)

[Deltauren]

Thanks^^


Have two sets:

3 x 2GB Corsair TR3X6G1600C9 1600Mhz - CL9 (1.65v)

2 x 2GB Crucial CT1418943 CT25664BA160B also 1600Mhz - CL11 (1.5v)

Have just tried swapping them all in / out etc.

All worked individually, though not all worked in all slots.

Combining 1 x Corsair with 1 x Crucial worked. 2xCorsair, 2xCrucial worked too, getting me to 8Gb.

So I just kept shuffling the sets and eventually stumbled upon a combination that got to 10Gb. So success!


Have posted several times and looks to be getting 10Gb each time, and have restored my small CPU overclock.

I've tried increasing the memory frequency to 1600mhz, but have a red light on the motherboard RAM LEDs, so changed it to 1333mhz and it's gone away. Should I worry about a red light?

[ElectroStingz]

The problem is the memory timings / specifications.

The CL11 kit is slower so if you use the CL9 kit in the first slots the BIOS usually will try to force the CL9 timings on the CL11 kit, this in your case doesn't work.

If you can get the board to boot with the CL11 kit in slots 1/2, the slower timings will apply to the other sticks and may work as you have seen.

Did 1600Mhz work?
Your board has multiple LEDs and this could just indicate the memory voltage / load.

[Deltauren]

Yeah I knew about the timings, but as this PC build is almost 7 years old, I didn't really want to buy the same branded Corsair RAM for a few months of use, even though it's much cheaper than it was seven years ago.

Yes, it posted with 1600mhz and seemed to run okay in Windows, but haven't run any tests or done anything to stress it, e.g. gaming.

I think I'm okay with it as it is. I'll try and tweak it about a bit more at the weekend. Thanks for your help - the main thing is that I do now have a little bit more RAM to stop the stuttering / paging to HDD/SD.