Semi-Vanity - Memory and updates

Memory not being read correctly

A while back, after a relatively big W update, my memory dropped from 14gb to 8gb. I have 2x4 and 3x2. I noticed because performance sucked.
This is an older PC and I don't think the 3x2 is recommended for this board. However! I've used it for years and have *never* had problems with it. This PC runs horribly with 8gb of RAM and the heaviest lifting I do is probably watching high res YT video.

SO! The link above relates this story but I tried ALL kinds of things to fix the situation. I did everything but move the memory because the tower is in a bad spot and is *heavy* I said screw it and ran with 8gb and dealt with laggy mouse etc. Kept browsers tabs at a minimum etc...I made a habit of keeping task mgr open on the performance tab. One day after a, rare, reboot the memory just came back. 14gb, pc is zippy again. For the record, during troubleshooting there were many reboots.

fast forward:

I just updated again to 1909 18363.1198 and boom....BSOD, with messages that appear to be memory related. Memory back to 8gb. Multiple reboots, with me trying to be gentle with apps and such so I wouldn't tax the memory and try to limp through what I needed to do. Told myself I was done with this BS and would just upgrade my PC to deal with this but I had things I needed to do and this was my only option.

I probably had 5 reboots where I would crash upon login or I would make it 3 or 4 minutes and then crash. Eventually it just stabilized... Now it's been up a couple days and I'm doing everything I normally do with no problems at all.

Vanity post I guess. Not helpful at all but just wanted to relay my experience with this extremely frustrating problem.
Also frustrating because I assume it will happen again after a major update. I should probably just watch for some good mobo/cpu combos and upgrade.

Berton said:

The maker of the motherboard isn't mentioned in your data but a Search for P6x58d suggests it may be an ASUS. A check at Crucial US | DRAM, Solid State Drive (SSD) & Memory Upgrades doesn't find that model.


The mention of 14GB RAM shows a problem, more likely it should be 16GB or maybe 12GB, multiples of 2, 4 or 8. Could be the sockets are intended to be filled in pairs and one more 2GB is needed for that. And it's most likely that Windows didn't change the BIOS so check that for how much RAM is actually installed. If that is correct then Windows is not reading it correctly. Or maybe a module or 2 have failed, worse would be the need to replace the motherboard. Any performance problems will be related to physical issues.

Yes it's an ASUS.
14 installed.
start up shows 14
Windows shows 14
CpuZ shows 14

However, when I was having problems months ago W showed 8 and CpuZ showed 14.

I don't know...it works well unless I update and then, apparently, it takes 5-10 reboots for everything to settle down! LOL I really don't know what to do with that tech-wise *shrug*
Everything works fine right now, and if history repeats, it will continue until a big update.

- - - Updated - - -

Ghot said:

@ChrisPbass


You shouldn't EVER mix and match RAM in a computer.

Also, do yourself a favor...

AMD... System Builder - Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core - PCPartPicker

Intel... System Builder - Core i7-10700K 3.8 GHz 8-Core - PCPartPicker

the favor being upgrade and avoid this problem in the future? or is this a killer deal? I do need to upgrade, I've had this PC for a LONG time and I traded labor for it so it was basically free. Except for the additional RAM.

- - - Updated - - -

Berton said:

In re-reading I see I forgot to say about the 2GB that you could remove one module to make it 12GB total. For most things that would be sufficient. Keep in mind that Windows will make use of all the available memory as needed, it's not a problem until running into a program that wants even more. I have a couple of Desktops with 16GB but 8GB has always been plenty. My first computer had 4MB RAM and ran into issue with WordPerfect for Windows and 8 pages of a document so the first Upgrade was to 8MB RAM.

I don't remember why I got a triple RAM but the manual suggested that trips work best. It's been a while but I think that's what it said. It was probably also the best bang for the buck.
For the record, I did not know about mismatched RAM. I did make sure it had the same clock speed and latency.

LOL no thanks
Yeah I know PCpicker
And yes... Old PC but it does what I want. No performance issues at all

Ghot said:

No. I didn't suggest upgrading for performance issues, but for lack of being able to find DDR3 RAM for sale.

ahhhh got it...reading on my phone. Yes finding memory was pain $$$