Win 7 won't boot with 8 Gigs of Ram

I have a AMD Phenom X4 9600 CPU. I purchased 8 gigs of DDR2 Ram for it. It will only recognize 7 Gigs. When I add 8 Gigs it will not boot.


I mostly use it for Auto Cad, and Photoshop, both are Memory HOGS.

Crucial Memory is: (2) 4GB kit (2GBx2), 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-6400 memory.
I'm running Win 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit OS.
the ram can be found here:


I haven't done anything to my Quad core. I took it out of the box and plugged it in. I want to know if I'm getting the most out of my computer. I'd like to get all 8 Gigs of memory out of it, and if there is anything I can do to boost performance for running these 2 programs I'd like to do this as well.

I have read in places that I might need to boost the memory Voltage in the bios as well as change the timing. But I'm new to playing with this stuff so I don't want to screw anything up.

Thanks for your time and help,

Jig

 

The default voltage in most BIOS's is 1.5v that memory is 1.8v

 

I think the mobo would auto-vault up to 1.8v.

Anyway, what motherboard do you own?

 

My three Gigabyte boards do not.

 

according to CPU-Z when I click on Mainboard

Brand: ECS
model: Nettle3
chipset: NVIDIA MCP61
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies
version: 5.17

Jig

 

Can CPU-Z tell me what my voltage is currently running at?

Jig

 

FWIW, your motherboard should support the amount of ram at the speed you gave, so worth looking at your voltages etc.

 

I know my RAM should be at 1.8V according to Crucial.

Is the manual going to tell me what my timing should be at? like I said before this is ALL VERY NEW to me.

I guess what I'm asking is if I change the Voltage does that mean the timing changes as well?

Is there anything else I can do to increase the performance for the 2 programs I'm using?

 

I tried to find my manual for this mother board. I found the following:

I don't even know what I'm looking for. I consider myself a a newbie but I do have some computer knowledge. I don't know where to find the BIOS let alone change it. and now I'm starting to wonder if this is over my head.

Is this an easy task?

Jig

 

I found this for a mother board manual: I dont see any BIOS memory voltage defaults.

Where do I go to look at or open the BOIS?

 

When you boot your PC, it will be one of the first things you see and typically ask you to hit Esc, Enter, F12 etc to enter Setup/BIOS/Boot menu.

 

Most desktop MOBO's use the DEL key to enter the bios. Press a couple of times during first post screen.

 

My bios appears to be locked or I don't see an area to change the memory voltage.

Now I don't know what to do.

 

When I go into the BIOS under Main

I can see the installed Memory, But I am not able to go into it and make any changes.

I can see that it is a Phoenix _ AwardBIOS CMOS Setup Utility

Core Version: V6.0
BIOS Version 5.17
model number: m8400f
Product number KJ377AAR-AB

 

I still don't know how or where to find the manual it is you are talking about. You speak as if everyone knows what you know and if this was the case I would not be asking the questions I'm asking. I posted what I was able to find.

"I tried to find my manual for this mother board. I found the following: "

Is this what you are asking me to find? If so I don't see anywhere were it tells me to be able to change something locked in the BOIS.

Jig