GParted not seeing SSD, OS not using all memory.

[35g700]

EDIT 1: Well, I moved my RAM around and booted into my old Windows 7 install and Windows is using all 12GB of RAM. Now for formatting my SSD without using the crappy Windows format utility.

So I just got my OCZ Vertex III 60GB SSD along with 12GB of RAM. I installed the RAM and booted into Windows 7 to find that Windows sees 12GB of RAM but only 6GB of it is usable. My old set of Memory is DDR3-1600MHz, which is the same as my new set. However the timings on my new set are slightly slower (9-9-9-24, instead of 8-7-8-24) but the old RAM should slow down to the speed of the new RAM.

So after that I decided to do a fresh install of Windows 7 on my new SSD. I unplugged my 500GB, and 750GB drives, plugged my SSD into my SATA 6GB/s port, downloaded the latest version of GParted, burned it to a disk then booted my computer. Once GParted fully loaded I went to format my SSD and GParted didn't detect any drives. I then shut down my computer plugged in my Windows 7 flash drive that I had made a few hours earlier and Windows saw the drive. I used Windows to partition the drive and let Windows start to install. Once Windows got to the first reboot point instead of rebooting I got a BSOD. I then proceeded to run memtest to make sure my new set of RAM was good and the tests completed with no errors.

So right now I'm curious as to why Windows will only allow me to use 6GB of my RAM and why I can't format my SSD using GParted (I'm suspecting it's a driver problem)..... And yes I'm using an x64 OS.

Thanks for the help

 

[Slaymate]

Did you manually set the memory latencies? Most older kits of 1600MHz are rated at 1.65v while some of the newer memory is rated for 1.5v, are yours both rated for the same voltage?

In GParted was the drive locked or not found? SSD's are hot-plug devices, meaning you can remove the sata power cable while the system is running. To unlock a drive while GParted is running, remove the sata power cable and wait 30 seconds, then plug it back in.

Did you set the bios for AHCI mode?

 

[35g700]

Yes, I manually adjusted the timings for the RAM.

My old RAM is 1.6v, my new RAM is 1.5v. Is their a way to make them use different voltages.

---

On the SSD.

My motherboard has two SATA III ports on it. It has this thing called I/O level up that I can either set for USB3 or SATA III, which is set for SATA III. I found that these two ports configure to AHCI differently than my SATA II ports. I set my SATA III ports for AHCI mode, updated my firmware to the latest version than ram AS SSD benchmark. I'm getting 246.59 MB/s Read and 86.27 MB/s write which is MUCH slower than the results that you got with your Vertex 3 120GB. I'm not sure what would cause this.

EDIT: After switching my two SATA III ports to AHCI mode GParted saw my SSD. I formated it and I'm installing Windows on it now. Hopefully my speeds will improve with the SSD as my main drive.

 

[Slaymate]

I would up the voltage to 1.6v for both sets of ram.

Larger SSD's usually have slightly better performance. But those speeds sound like your still plugged into a SATA II 3Gb/s port.

AS-SSD isn't the best benchmark and it can degrade performance with continuous use.

 

[35g700]

I've installed Windows to my SSD and I've followed your tweak guide. I haven't installed anything whatsoever to the Windows install yet.

I'm going to try and backup some files to my 500GB drive so that I can put my program files, and whatnot on my 750GB drive.

EDIT:

I've got the memory set to auto and I've checked the voltages with CPU-Z and I'm getting 1.5V for my new RAM and 1.6V for my old RAM.

I'm still getting SATA II like readings from my SSD even though it's plugged into the SATA III ports. Does anyone know why this would happen?

EDIT2:

I've read some reviews on newegg and I guess to fully enable SATA III I need to set my PCIe x16 port to x8 instead of x16. Although the board advertises that it has "True USB 3" and "True SATA III" you can only use one feature at a time and if you're using either USB 3 or SATA III you must run your PCIe x16 port in x8 mode instead of x16. However I guess that video cards don't fully saturate the port when it's in x8 mode anyways. Now I need to figure out how to put my PCIe x 16 port in x8 mode.

EDIT3:

My PCIe port is in x8 mode but I'm still getting SATA II like readings.