How come Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit can only recognize 8G of RAM when I have 12G installed?

How come Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit can only recognize 8G of RAM when I have 12G installed?

My motherboard is an Asus P6T and I made sure that my RAM are of the same brand and the same spec. CPU-z can detect all 6 2G modules that I have installed so they are all plugged in properly into the RAM slots. The only thing is that I haven't activated Windows 7 yet, since I am waiting for my SSD to arrive so I don't want to risk being accused of being a pirate when I reinstall Windows 7 onto the SSD.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 457

Total answers/comments: 3

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bert [Entry]

"There could be any number of reasons this doesn't work:

Faulty motherboard or memory slot
Faulty memory stick, what does memtest say about them all?
Issues with voltage, try upping DRAM voltage a bit
Issues with heat, try to run it open and with a fan towards the memory
A memory speed issue, that motherboard does only support 3 modules at full speed (DDR-1600)
Generally flaky BIOS or hardware, try inserting one module at a time and booting, making sure it's deteckted, continue one module at a time until it works or fails - when it fails, try reordering the modules in all possible combinations

Activating Windows should not have anything to do with this, you can easily extend the grace period if needed. However you should not be afraid of activating it either. If you run out of ""free"" activations you just call Microsoft and get another - they're not going to question you or even ask why (unless you answer their ""how many pcs are you running this copy of Windows on?"" with something else than one ^^"

bert [Entry]

Open MSCONFIG, open the Boot tab, click Advanced Options, make sure that Maximum Memory is not capped.

bert [Entry]

I had this problem, and the issue ended up being the order in which the RAM was installed. In this case, it was a laptop- BIOS would show 12G, but Windows 7 x64 showed "23 installed, 7.34 available". The laptop has 4 slots, 2 under the keyboard and two on the bottom. Switching the two 4Gs to under the keyboard, and two 2Gs to the bottom fixed the problem.