Hardware Reserved Memory

[caydanym]

It's a common issue, and I know there's quite a few threads on this, but I've tried literally everything suggested and so I'm here hoping that there's something I've missed in my months of troubleshooting. I built my PC a couple of years ago, the build is:

 

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

MSI X470 Gaming Plus

RTX 2070

G.Skill Trident Z 3200MHz 2x8GB

 

When the system was built, everything was fine. Cut to about three months ago and I notice I'm sucking up a lot more RAM doing basic tasks than I used to. I find out that 8.1 GB of my memory is hardware reserved. I google it. I look it up here. I do the following, in roughly this order:

1. Reseat the RAM in their slots
2. Swap them between those two slots
   1. And before someone suggests it, it doesn't boot with only one stick in because it's dual channel memory.
3. Change them to the other two slots
4. Swap them between those other two slots
5. Ensure that maximum memory under msconfig is unchecked
6. Update my BIOS and then proceed to relearn where everything is because the GUI changed
7. Buy new RAM and repeat steps 1-4
   1. I will note here that I goofed my first time around and bought the version of RAM that isn't labelled as AMD compatible, but I never had an issue, so this time around I made sure I bought the AMD compatible version just to make sure. It didn't affect the issue.

I'm at the point where my next option is to simply re-install windows and see if that works. I don't want to do it because it means downloading software all over again over my garbage I-live-in-the-boonies internet connection, but that's the only card I have left to play. I've got both sets of RAM in the system right now and it boots, but the RAM only runs at 1866 MHz despite me repeatedly telling it not to in the BIOS. It probably has to do with the fact that they're two different types of RAM so that's on me. The new BIOS GUI is still throwing me for a loop. I've rewired this entire thing so many times over the last three months, I genuinely don't think it's a connection issue, otherwise something I've reseated would've done the trick.

[SignatureSigner]

Is windows installed on a HDD? I have seen it where windows detect that a drive is under preforming/failing and starts loading itself into ram... most likely not what is happening here but just a question!

[PorkishPig]

I think you just might be getting unlucky with your memory. Try testing your memory with Windows Memory Diagnostic (Win+R, type mdsched.exe into Run).

7 minutes ago, caydanym said:

I will note here that I goofed my first time around and bought the version of RAM that isn't labelled as AMD compatible, but I never had an issue, so this time around I made sure I bought the AMD compatible version just to make sure. It didn't affect the issue.

Consumer memory being labeled "AMD compatible" does not matter.

[caydanym]

Just now, PorkishPig said:

I think you just might be getting unlucky with your memory. Try testing your memory with Windows Memory Diagnostic (Win+R, type mdsched.exe into Run).

Consumer memory being labeled "AMD compatible" does not matter.

So, clearly the gods of chaos are listening to me.

 

Immediately after making this post, I shut down my computer to take out the old RAM so that maybe it wouldn't run at a garbage frequency. I boot up into the BIOS, make sure it's at 2933 MHz, and then boot to windows. Lo and behold, the issue is gone. So we can just mark this as problem solved and I'm going to go outside and scream into the void of the desert.

 

I will keep this in mind if the issue comes back up, though, so thanks. I really need to get around to learning the ins and outs of windows diagnostics.