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Possible Duplicate:
Why is all my extra RAM marked as “hardware reserved” in Windows 7?

I accidently plugged DDR2 into my DDR3 motherboard. I have 4GB of RAM, and it was running all 4GB before my accident. After removing the DD2, Win 7 64-bit started doing the Hardware Reserved nonsense.

I have a AMD CPU HDZ955FBGMBOX Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz AM3 125W.

Could I have shorted out the channel?

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Ryan Long
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    If by "DD2" and "DD3" you mean "DDR2" and "DDR3", I'm surprised on how you actually did that without killing your system or the modules, as the two memory module types are mechanically incompatible (i.e. DDR2 modules won't fit on DDR3 slots and vice-versa). – Renan May 20 '12 at 22:49
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    Renan is correct. please see this image for an example: http://www.build-gaming-computer-guide.com/image-files/ddr3-vs-ddr2-ram.jpg If you put DDR2 RAM into a DDR3 slot, you would have simply BROKEN the RAM or the motherboard RAM slot. You must be mistaken in the situation. – Ben Jacobson May 20 '12 at 22:51
  • Maybe so. Regardless, after removing the new RAM, it did the Hardware Reserved. Didn't know if perhaps there was a hardware problem, since I have tried most of the fixes for the Hardware Reserved problem i.e. unchecked Max Memory, enabling remapping, and even installed the OS. – Ryan Long May 20 '12 at 23:02
  • Have you looked at this question? – evan.bovie May 20 '12 at 23:09
  • I hadn't seen that thread yet, no. Thanks, I'll look through it. – Ryan Long May 20 '12 at 23:12
  • Let me know if it helped. If so, I'll add it as an answer. – evan.bovie May 20 '12 at 23:14
  • ... or close the question as a duplicate of that. – Bon Gart May 20 '12 at 23:50
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    It did help! "Turns out that the installed RAM was in an unsupported config -- On this machine, if you install 2GB chips, they have to be installed in triple, as referenced here (pdf).

    Its interesting to note that Windows saw the memory, but it was rendered not usable and marked as "hardware reserved". "

     – Ryan Long May 21 '12 at 00:26
  • Pinging @emb1995 for the answer. – slhck May 21 '12 at 07:29

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This question might help. The answer follows:

Turns out that the installed RAM was in an unsupported config -- On this machine, if you install 2GB chips, they have to be installed in triple, as referenced here (pdf).

Its interesting to note that Windows saw the memory, but it was rendered not usable and marked as "hardware reserved".

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evan.bovie
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