New Motherboard needed?

dragonwarrior · 26 Oct 2012 at 23:14

I have a Asrock p55 Pro Motherboard, with 8 gig (2x 4 gig) kingston 1600 memory (currently running at 1333), i5 750 Processor and a HD 4650 graphics card.

The memory (current and original) is showing as single channel in Bios and Windows 7 64 is only showing 3.99 gig usable. CPU z detects both memory slots as single mode, RAMMap only shows 4 gig of memory though.

I've tried all I can, reset CMOS etc with still the same result. With one stick of memory in Windows shows 4 gig.

Also the graphics card is only showing as running at 8x in a 16x PCIE slot.

I'm leaning towards the motherboard being the problem and wondering which motherboard to look at for £100 or less. I will be upgrading the graphics card soon as well, to probably a 6850.

Surveyor · 27 Oct 2012 at 00:13

Before you shell out on a new motherboard....

Not that it's going to make any noticeable difference to performance running at PCI-E x8 speed but where are you getting PCI-E x8 from?

If you're using GPU-Z then you need to click on the question mark next to "Bus Interface" and run the render test to show the true speed.

For dual channel operation you need to be using the two white RAM slots.

What CPU cooler are you using?

Some coolers when over tightened can warp the motherboard/CPU socket and lead to problems with RAM working properly.

You can also check this:

1) run msconfig

2) click on the boot tab

3) click on advanced options

4) make sure the maximum memory box isn't ticked

dragonwarrior · 27 Oct 2012 at 14:14

Thank you for your reply.

I've ran the render test using GPU and it's still showing running at PCI-E 8x, not that that will make a noticeable difference as you say.

RAM is in the two white slots and the maximum memory box isn't ticked.

I'm using an AEGIR SD128264 CPU cooler.

dragonwarrior · 28 Oct 2012 at 14:07

Comp went kaput on me last night, with the system rebooting constantly before even getting into bios. Took the cooler off to try reseating and checked the CPU, brownouts on the cpu so I will be looking at a new comp instead. Replacing everything except Case, Monitor and cooler...when I get the money together for it that is.