G75VW suddenly has 4.7GB RAM hardware reserved

[not_otaku]

I have a G75VW that I use for work and it's been running Windows 8 Pro x64 for months without suffering any real problem. I came in to work today, start up some VMs, and the system basically hangs - because 4.7 GB RAM of the 8 GB total has been marked as "hardware reserved".

The only change I'm aware of is an update to nVidia drivers (320.49) yesterday or the day before. I've completely removed 320.49 and installed 306.14 drivers but there's no change to the system.

There's nothing in the BIOS (G75VW.223) showing control over reserving memory.

CPU-Z shows 8GB total RAM; BIOS shows 8 GB total RAM; Windows recognises 8 GB total RAM - so what's the deal?

[Pitcher1]

please download new driver from asus support site as V.9.18.13.1100.02 try again.

[Apexing]

What I think is happening is you got a faulty RAM module, if it is possible, try and open up so you have access to the RAM, remove a stick, reboot and see. do this for both modules.

[Zygomorphic]

Intel Dude wrote:
only stick to ASUS drivers do not use drivers directly from the manufacturers for maximum stability

I would generally state otherwise in the case of the video drivers, but for other stuff, I'm not too sure. nVidia drivers won't reserve memory via hardware, they only cache extra textures in system RAM as necessary. This should lead to a large allocation of memory to the nVidia driver process(es), but not "hardware reserved". I'll bet a faulty RAM module.

Try running memtest86+ and seeing what happens.

[not_otaku]

Pitcher@asus wrote:
please download new driver from asus support site as V.9.18.13.1100.02 try again.

Clean installation - no change.

Apexing wrote:
What I think is happening is you got a faulty RAM module, if it is possible, try and open up so you have access to the RAM, remove a stick, reboot and see. do this for both modules.

Unfortunately, the RAM sticks must be under the keyboard as the exposed RAM slots are empty.

Intel Dude wrote:
only stick to ASUS drivers do not use drivers directly from the manufacturers for maximum stability

I don't agree. I've used drivers "authorised" by the vendor/manufacturer that have completely failed.

Zygomorphic wrote:
Try running memtest86+ and seeing what happens.

I'll do this tonight.

[Zygomorphic]

Thanks for doing that, it will determine if we are dealing with faulty RAM modules. You shouldn't see any red in the lower portion of the screen. If you do, then there is an issue.