PC won't utilize over 6GB of RAM, recognizes 8GB is present.

[lilrayray69]

Specs: i5-4690k, EVGA SC GTX 970, 8GB (2GBx4) DDR3 1600 G.Skill Ripjaw, GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-SLI, Antec TruePower 750W, Samsung 120GB 840 SSD, & a 1TB HDD.

So my PC 'shows' that I have 8GB of RAM - System panel shows that, task manager does, etc...But I have never seen it utilize over 6GB of RAM. Whenever I play a game like say, Witcher 3, itll get up to around 5500mb RAM usage and then Win7 gives me that pop-up message to revert Win7 to basic settings to reduce RAM usage, saying I'm near RAM max usage or whatever. Today I saw it hit around 6050mb RAM usage and Win7 gave me the message to shutdown Witcher3.exe as the PC would crash due to RAM over-utilization.

So I'm guessing it's simply not able to use that final 2048mb for some reason. Now, one thing I have noticed is that things like CPU-Z and 3DMark will show that 1 RAM slot is at 667mhz, I always figured it was just a bug or glitch but maybe it's showing that one RAM stick or slot is faulty?

Here's screencaps of what I mean, Slot 3 is the one that's 667MHz while the rest show 800MHz

In the BIOS I have the RAM set to their XMP-1 which sets it to 800MHz and the correct default timings.

 

[Ketchup]

If you open up resource monitor, does it show any RAM as reserved?

Do you have on-chip video enabled? How much RAM have you allocated to it?

PS: I almost forgot, as this is very rare in a custom system: msconfig.
Go to the Boot tab and the Advanced options button. Make sure Maximum Memory isn't set there.

 

[VirtualLarry]

First off, those pics of CPU-Z, simply show the SPD info. Those do not show the speed that the RAM is actually running at. (That's a different tab in CPU-Z). Those pics do indicate that one DIMM is different than the rest, though. Was this a 4x2GB combo kit, or did you mix and match RAM from different kits?

Second, what you really need to be looking at, in Task Manager, is not "RAM usage", but "Commit Charge".

You need to enable the column for Commit Charge under Processes tab. Also, look at total Commit Charge under Performance tab.

That's how much virtual-memory is allocated by the system. If this exceed physical RAM, it will spill over into the pagefile, unless your pagefile is disabled somehow.

Do you have Samsung's Magician software installed? Did you ever let it "optimize" your system? It may have shrunk your pagefile down to nearly nothing.

Also, Windows 7 disabling Aero, is not generally due to system RAM usage, but rather, VRAM usage.

 

[lilrayray69]

I believe I have onboard graphics disabled, not sure about RAM allocation to it never seen anything about that.

Resource monitor shows 116MB is Hardware Reserved.

Checked Maximum Memory in Boot tab of MsConfig, was not turned on.

The RAM sticks are 2 separate 2x4GB combo kits, though of the same make/model, G.Skill RipJaw DDR3-1600 with same default timings.

The main page for memory of CPU-Z shows the DRAM Frequency to be 799.9 MhHz

I enabled Commit Size but haven't seen anything significant, I don't think.

I actually did just install Samsgung Magician yesterday and optimized it, I checked and it did reduce my page file down to 200 MB. I undid that and put it back to what it was. However this happened plenty before I ever touched Samsung Magician.

If it's VRAM I don't see how that would make sense. It happens every time I play Witcher 3 and I never see my VRAM usage go over 2GB during gameplay and I have a 970 which has 3.5GB of VRAM.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The RAM sticks are 2 separate 2x4GB combo kits, though of the same make/model, G.Skill RipJaw DDR3-1600 with same default timings.

Well, your third stick has SPD info for a DDR3-1333 module. It may have been mis-programmed at the factory. You may or may not want to RMA that kit because of this.

I actually did just install Samsgung Magician yesterday and optimized it, I checked and it did reduce my page file down to 200 MB. I undid that and put it back to what it was. However this happened plenty before I ever touched Samsung Magician.

Doesn't make sense, unless you have previously shrunk your pagefile. If you have 8GB of RAM, and a system-managed pagefile, you will have an 8GB pagefile.sys file on your HDD or SSD too, giving you a max Commit Charge of 16GB. Meaning, you shouldn't be seeing OOM errors in Windows, until you exceed 16GB, not 6GB. (Edit: And as a matter of technical fact, that was just my example, which would be correct if you set a fixed-sized pagefile of 8GB, with 8GB of RAM. In truth, if you leave it system-managed, pagefile.sys will grow to 3X RAM size, giving you a total Max Commit Charge of 4X the size of your physical RAM.)

If it's VRAM I don't see how that would make sense. It happens every time I play Witcher 3 and I never see my VRAM usage go over 2GB during gameplay and I have a 970 which has 3.5GB of VRAM.

The message about Windows wanting to kill the Witcher 3.exe because of low memory isn't VRAM-related, that's virtual-memory related. I thought that you were referring to Windows 7 disabling the Aero task manager/explorer window, that happens sometimes when running WinSat (WEI) too, due to using up the VRAM during testing.

 

[postmortemIA]

so why would one app take all 8GB? find some tool that uses up to max RAM, and test it. Hell, I already have simple test for you: open 1,000 tabs in Chrome. Since every tab is single process, it will surely eat all (memory) you got.

 

[lilrayray69]

Doesn't make sense, unless you have previously shrunk your pagefile. If you have 8GB of RAM, and a system-managed pagefile, you will have an 8GB pagefile.sys file on your HDD or SSD too, giving you a max Commit Charge of 16GB. Meaning, you shouldn't be seeing OOM errors in Windows, until you exceed 16GB, not 6GB. (Edit: And as a matter of technical fact, that was just my example, which would be correct if you set a fixed-sized pagefile of 8GB, with 8GB of RAM. In truth, if you leave it system-managed, pagefile.sys will grow to 3X RAM size, giving you a total Max Commit Charge of 4X the size of your physical RAM.)

I mean I'd installed Magician two days ago and used it's "optimize" feature which I assume lowered my page file to 200 MB. Prior to that I believe I had it set at system-managed and I believe it had an 8GB pagefile on my SSD. Anyway, I did restore that pagefile setting to system-managed and it has an 8GB pagefile on the SSD again.

I did as someone suggested and opened up a bunch of youtube tabs in Chrome until it exceeded 6GB of memory usage - it went up to 7.88 GB of usage and topped out there, so it can and will read up to all 8GB of RAM.

I'm still not seeing why it gives me the OOM message when running a game, and I have a OSD to monitor RAM and VRAM usage and neither is near full. I just tried it with Witcher 3 and the message came up with 5GB of VRAM usage and 1.4GB of VRAM usage.

Still odd how one RAM stick seems to be a DDR3-1333 model. I actually did RMA one of these G.Skill sticks a few months ago because it was returning tons of errors in Memtest. They did the RMA free. Guess I'd have to look back to see which serial # I sent in for RMA and if it is the returned one or one of my originals that is that odd 1333 Mhz one.

 

[Ketchup]

.....I did as someone suggested and opened up a bunch of youtube tabs in Chrome until it exceeded 6GB of memory usage - it went up to 7.88 GB of usage and topped out there, so it can and will read up to all 8GB of RAM.....

In my mind, this sounds like you have narrowed down the issue to the game, or possibly your video card drivers. The Aero disabling is usually chosen by the game/app, and not necessarily a message that you are out of anything.

I haven't heard about this, but I wonder if the game has a certain threshold where it disables Aero just to make sure you don't run out of RAM (75% in this case).