MSI 890GXM-G65 won't utilize all 16GB

[Pinky]

Done some poking around with google, tried various MD settings, and no matter what I can't seem to get a consistent boot with 16GB available.

Currently MB thinks there's only 12GB, but I've seen it dip as low as 8GB on a reboot. Only twice out of dozens of reboots did I get 16GB available (and tested they were available in windows). To complicate matters more (?) in Windows is says "16.0 GB (X.XX GB usable)," where X.XX is whatever the MB is currently detecting and changes to match exactly (but Windows ALWAYS reports 16.0GB!!!).

Rather frustrating.

 

[trents]

Sounds like a bios bug to me. What frequency are you running the ram at?

 

[Pinky]

Well, tinkered with the voltages (had it at 1.50 manually) and if I raise it to 1.51 or higher I seem to get consistent reboots at 16GB.

It's all set to auto (1600 mhz) and the memoryz reports the proper settings for all banks. I'm thinking the board just may need to be nudged to provide adequate power for four ram chips running at that speed. Possibly a false alwarm, I'll report back in a few hours/days if I learn any more but looks like I cried wolf too soon.

 

[trents]

Well, that was an easy fix. I always set my 1.5v ram to 1.525-1.55 anyway when overclocking. I find for some reason it helps with overall stability even when the ram itself isn't being overclocked.

 

[petteyg359]

Wish I could get my 16GB to do their rated 1600MHz that easily. I've never had a problem with it using all 16GB, just that I can't get it to boot at 1600MHz.

 

[Pinky]

Well, no luck on it being that easy. Had a BSOD early today, raised the RAM voltage a bit more (to 1.53v) but couldn't get it to boot consistently into 16GB again, only 12GB. Was able to get one 16GB boot, and let it boot into memtest and ran that today, after 3 passes there was over a thousand errors so obviously the motherboard isn't handling 4 dimms very well. Might have to return/resell the extra ram and put that money into a new PC someday.

 

[trekky]

cant you RMA the MOBO? of so i would do that

 

[Pinky]

Nah, the board is almost two year sold.

I did some more testing, this time finally breaking down and backing off the speed to 1333mhz and it memtest'd fine with all 16GB consistently being detected on reboot and stock 1.5v It's sad that an advertised memory configuration doesn't work but I'll live with more memory than a small hit in performance.

 

[trents]

At 1333 you might be able to turn the latencies down and recoup some of that performance loss.