hardware reserved ram?

[mineblaster]

any ideas how to get it to be usable. i wouldn't mind using it

 

an extra 16gb would be great

[FireFlame9222]

cant, its reserved for windows 

[mineblaster]

for what

 

[r00tH4cK3r]

The system is using that for caching purposes, similar to swap in Linux. There is nothing you can do to free that up. It's a server OS so it is more powerful then a standard desktop OS, therefor needing more cache. 

[flibberdipper]

If my memory serves correct, it's used for caching.

[mineblaster]

16gb seems excessive tho

[leadeater]

37 minutes ago, FireFlame9222 said:

cant, its reserved for windows 

 

35 minutes ago, r00tH4cK3r said:

The system is using that for caching purposes, similar to swap in Linux. There is nothing you can do to free that up. It's a server OS so it is more powerful then a standard desktop OS, therefor needing more cache. 

 

34 minutes ago, tmcclelland455 said:

If my memory serves correct, it's used for caching.

Memory used for caching within Windows is not hardware reserved, this is not normal.

 

Most often I have seen this when the RAM being used isn't fully supported by the motherboard, is faulty or a hardware device wants to use it e.g. GPU shared system memory.

 

What's the exact memory configuration and part numbers? 12 x 4GB?

 

Your likely going to have to isolate the problem but checking every stick of RAM, and then also in different slots and configurations. Will take a while. 

[leadeater]

Also check out the marked answers in this technet post, I don't think this will be it but something to check anyway.

 

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/9946daa7-6cc7-4c67-b4db-d9bc03c63ea6/windows-7-hardware-reserved-memory-way-too-much?forum=w7itproperf

[mineblaster]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

 

Memory used for caching within Windows is not hardware reserved, this is not normal.

 

Most often I have seen this when the ram being used isn't fully supported by the motherboard, is faulty or a hardware device wants to use it e.g. GPU shared system memory.

 

What's the exact memory configuration? 12 x 4GB?

 

Your likely going to have to isolate the problem but checking every stick of RAM, and then also in different slots and configurations. Will take a while. 

its an old kit i would be suprised some are faulty

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, mineblaster said:

its an old kit i would be suprised some are faulty

May not be faulty but the MB might not like them so is disabling them. A lot of servers from that generation required slots to be populated in a correct order and combinations, some also required 1.5v RAM when using the full number of slots versus low voltage RAM.

 

Edit: Unfortunately not just any RAM will work when you go above a certain number of slots or total GB.

 

Edit 2: Here is the memory I use for my S5520HC + E5520, 96GB (12x8GB) Samsung PC3-8500R 1066Mhz 2Rx4 1.5v (M393B1K70BH1-CF8)

http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/products/dram/server-dram/ddr3-registered-dimm/M393B1K70BH1?ia=2506

[mineblaster]

it shows up in the bios and theres no crazy redundancy settings enabled

 

the dimms are some generic samsung dimms i use to have 18 got rid of the spares with the old board i had

 

it seem to show up under that advanced tab just need to restart

 

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, mineblaster said:

it shows up in the bios and theres no crazy redundancy settings enabled

 

the dimms are some generic samsung dimms i use to have 18 got rid of the spares with the old board i had

 

it seem to show up under that advanced tab just need to restart

 

Yea it can be detected by the MB etc during post but then it can disable slots which will show up as hardware reserved in Windows. However I would expect Samsung memory to work, practically everything supports them. Only thing I can think of would be if they are low voltage ram, check the part number on Samsung's website to find out.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

24 minutes ago, mineblaster said:

it shows up in the bios and theres no crazy redundancy settings enabled

 

the dimms are some generic samsung dimms i use to have 18 got rid of the spares with the old board i had

 

it seem to show up under that advanced tab just need to restart

 

You may get some additional information by using RAMMap, but I don't know enough to tell you how to proceed in each case (the only time I used it was on a VM, and I eventually narrowed it down to the sysadmin having assigned overlapping resources to another VM while mine was offline). But there is a chance googling whichever term those 16gb are labeled as will help you too.

[mineblaster]

31 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yea it can be detected by the MB etc during post but then it can disable slots which will show up as hardware reserved in Windows. However I would expect Samsung memory to work, practically everything supports them. Only thing I can think of would be if they are low voltage ram, check the part number on Samsung's website to find out.

 

http://www.memoryamerica.com/m393b5170eh1-cf8.html

M393B5170EH1-CF8

 

on a super micro X8DTH-6F

[brwainer]

I would recommend running memtest86+ and/or the Windows Memory Diagnostic - both will test your memory. See if either/both of them are showing 32 or 48GB of ram, and let memtest86+ do a full test (will take many hours, even a 6GB computer takes 3-4 hours)

[Mark77]

Are you sure its all licensed up properly?  There are versions of Windows 2012 server that are OS-limited to 32gb of RAM.  If this was a MSDN copy, it might not be licensed for 'production' use, but still report being a 'standard' edition.

 

Personally I'd boot it up on a Linux boot stick and use "free" or "top" to tell me what it actually has, if the bootup messages don't say for sure.  Thinking this is a licensing issue, or maybe even a HAL issue.

 

From Google, RAM limits for the various 2012 Server licenses:

 

Physical Memory Limits: Windows Server 2012

Version	Limit on X64
Windows Server 2012 Datacenter	4 TB
Windows Server 2012 Standard	4 TB
Windows Server 2012 Essentials	64 GB
Windows Server 2012 Foundation	32 GB

[Mark77]

And a dual CPU configuration can be very sensitive to any asymmetry in the configurations.  Do you have 24gb associated per CPU?  Read the manuals carefully.

[brwainer]

8 hours ago, Mark77 said:

Are you sure its all licensed up properly?  There are versions of Windows 2012 server that are OS-limited to 32gb of RAM.  If this was a MSDN copy, it might not be licensed for 'production' use, but still report being a 'standard' edition.

 

Personally I'd boot it up on a Linux boot stick and use "free" or "top" to tell me what it actually has, if the bootup messages don't say for sure.  Thinking this is a licensing issue, or maybe even a HAL issue.

 

From Google, RAM limits for the various 2012 Server licenses:

 

Physical Memory Limits: Windows Server 2012

Version	Limit on X64
Windows Server 2012 Datacenter	4 TB
Windows Server 2012 Standard	4 TB
Windows Server 2012 Essentials	64 GB
Windows Server 2012 Foundation	32 GB

I've never heard about a situation like you describe, where certain licences, e.g. from MSDNor DreamSpark, might have a memory limitation. Normally the only limitation there is if you get a free Datacenter license, they give you a retail key instead of a VLM key. I also couldn't find any verification by researching with Google. Do you have any sources or examples where this has been the issue?

[Mark77]

4 hours ago, brwainer said:

I've never heard about a situation like you describe, where certain licences, e.g. from MSDNor DreamSpark, might have a memory limitation. Normally the only limitation there is if you get a free Datacenter license, they give you a retail key instead of a VLM key. I also couldn't find any verification by researching with Google. Do you have any sources or examples where this has been the issue?

No.  Pure 100% speculation.  As I said above, I'd throw a 64-bit Linux boot stick on it, see if the whole 48gb is available, and if so, then chances are, you're dealing with some sort of Windows issue rather than the underlying hardware. 

[brwainer]

37 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

No.  Pure 100% speculation.  As I said above, I'd throw a 64-bit Linux boot stick on it, see if the whole 48gb is available, and if so, then chances are, you're dealing with some sort of Windows issue rather than the underlying hardware. 

Ok then. And yes I agree on using something other than Windows to verify, but in a situation like this I'd go to memtest86+ before trying linux

[Mikensan]

Since you added more ram - is this a mixture of brands? And possibly a mixture of ECC and Non-ECC? Are the timings/latency all matching? 

 

I would try swapping slots for the RAM, say if they're colored black and blue, stick what was in the black into the blue slots and vice versa. see if you now only have 16gb of RAM.

 

Or only put in one group at a time and see if you experience the issue with both "sets" of ram.

 

**Windows Server will not limit your usable ram in any way - caching or licensing.