Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

[JRwinsom]

Hi all, 1st post, can AXTU xfast ram use more than 1670 mbs per drive letter? I have the Z77 Pro4-M mb, win 8 pro with 16 gb of the recommended Kingston hyper 4mb ram modules. Can someone explain how to use set up the extra ram in xfast? Thank you, JR.

[SerWaffles]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

I have a Z77 Extreme 6 running Win8 Pro x64 with 32 GB of G.Skill RipJaws 1600 RAM (4 x 8GB; part: F3-1600C9D-16GXM * 2). When I set XFast RAM to 4 GB, it shows as half full when I reboot (auto start the Extreme Utility). I tried 2 GB with the same result (1 GB used). I don't have the option to save the state checked.

I am using the latest version of the Extreme Utility here: (v0.1.250)

ASRock > Z77 Extreme6

Edit: Note that to change the amount of RAM I need to Stop the XFast RAM utility and reboot the machine. I tried bumping the amount down to 1670 MB and I got the same result of half showing used after Stop / reboot apply change in size in the utility / reboot again.

[JRwinsom]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

Thank you for your response, I forgot to add that I'm using windows 8 pro 32 bit. With xfast ram setup, I cannot go any higher amount than 1670 mb per drive letter.

[incognito7109]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

Hey man I'm no pro, but I've read that 32 bit windows limits the amount of ram you can use quite a bit. Not sure how much total, but 32 bit OS can only access so much ram. Maybe someone else can chime in.

[SerWaffles]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

Hey man I'm no pro, but I've read that 32 bit windows limits the amount of ram you can use quite a bit. Not sure how much total, but 32 bit OS can only access so much ram. Maybe someone else can chime in.

Yes, you can only usually address about 3.5 GB of RAM with 32-bit Windows:

Memory Limits for Windows Releases (Windows)

Actual addressable memory is less than 4 GB because of amounts allocated for system resources.

However, I'm not sure why my x64 system is showing the RAM disk as half full after reboot (with the Backup XFast RAM checkbox unchecked).

[- wardog -]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

Does Windows 8 x86 support the /PAE switch ?

[parsec]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

Yes, you can only usually address about 3.5 GB of RAM with 32-bit Windows:

Memory Limits for Windows Releases (Windows)

Actual addressable memory is less than 4 GB because of amounts allocated for system resources.

However, I'm not sure why my x64 system is showing the RAM disk as half full after reboot (with the Backup XFast RAM checkbox unchecked).

When you created the RAM disk, did you also select anything to be stored in it, like the pagefile, browser cache, temp files?

The 50% usage sounds like you have the pagefile on the RAM disk.

[SerWaffles]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

Does Windows 8 x86 support the /PAE switch ?

According to this no but it may not be updated:

Physical Address Extension (Windows)

According to this yes:

Physical Address Extension - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PAE may lead to instability so it should be used with caution and turned off if your system becomes unreliable.

[SerWaffles]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

When you created the RAM disk, did you also select anything to be stored in it, like the pagefile, browser cache, temp files?

The 50% usage sounds like you have the pagefile on the RAM disk.

Good point, parsec. I have all the "use" options checked. What's your opinion on the minimum RAM disk size if you're going to use it on a 32 GB system? Do you know if Windows 8 reverts to the hard drive if it runs out of room on the XFast RAM pagefile?

Also, is there any point in using the RAM disk as the pagefile since it's taking away from actual RAM?

Thanks.

[parsec]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

Sorry, forgot about this thread.

The size of the RAM disk should be balanced between the total amount of memory you have, the greatest amount of memory you use for your programs, etc, and what you are using the RAM disk for. There really are no rules for a minimum size, besides being large enough to be useful to you.

As long as you have a pagefile, regardless of where it is, I don't think Windows will create another one if the original one is full. What will happen is older entries in the pagefile will be deleted/over written to make space for new ones.

The ASR RAM disk program seems to use half of whatever size you choose for the RAM disk. You can adjust pagefile size yourself, but I'm not sure if the RAM disk program will change it back.

Since I use SSDs for my OS drives, and have the option to use the RAM disk for the pagefile, I've checked into when and why it is used, and if you actually need one. It turns out that the pagefile was added to Windows to increase performance in the days when PCs had less than 4GB of memory. Actually, when PCs had only one or two GB of memory. If you have 16GB or more, 99% of users will never have anything written to the pagefile. That is probably true if you have 8GB. The pagefile I had in the RAM disk had space allocated for it, but was never used. I checked the Windows Resource monitor, and the amount of writing to the pagefile was zero. I never use or come close to using the 16GB of memory I have. If you have 32GB of memory, and not using most of it, you could disable the pagefile and never know the difference. I've done that with 8GB of memory, and had no problems.

If you need more RAM, get the pagefile out of it. It actually is ridiculous to put the pagefile in RAM, as its purpose is to compensate for a lack of RAM. SSD users that want to reduce the amount of writes to their SSDs, move the pagefile elsewhere. Some people claim some programs must have a pagefile. Why would a program use a slower disk device instead of RAM memory? Why can't the program create its own temporary file if it needs one?

IMO, the pagefile is not needed in modern PCs with 8GB+ of memory.

[Jim Shaffer]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

You can use your extra RAM that's unavailable to the 32-bit versions of Windows in XFast RAM if you flip the "PAE Mode" switch in the upper right corner to "ON".

Unfortunately, I've found that this makes my system BSOD 100% of the time (albeit with different errors each time) when resuming from hibernation! Your mileage may vary -- I had it set to put the pagefile in the ramdisk, and I didn't feel like rebooting anymore times to test whether it works correctly without that option. Or, maybe you have a fast-booting system and don't ever hibernate it, whereas I never do anything but hibernate when I don't need to reboot.

[parsec]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

The latest version of AXTU does not have the PAE Mode option in the XFast RAM screen. I suppose that option may appear when a 32 bit OS is used, but I've never used one.

Jim, did you try the backup option on the XFast screen, which may help with resuming from Hibernation. You could also try using Sleep rather than Hibernate.

Have you tried the Intel Rapid Start feature, which seems to be identical to Hibernate, but may be improved. I've never used it.

[Jim Shaffer]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

I have no idea what the difference between Rapid Start and hibernate is supposed to be, other than that the instructions for Rapid Start say that it creates a hibernation partition instead of a hibernation file. Also, they say that you need an SSD for Rapid Start for some reason. I guess they just want to push the idea that you can come out of hibernation as fast as coming out of sleep. But since I don't have an SSD, I haven't tried it.

[SerWaffles]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

Thanks, parsec. That confirms my thinking. I don't know if the XFast RAM utility uses some trickery to address past the 4 GB limit on a 32-bit system. There doesn't seem to be a help file included which might indicate this. That would be the only scenario where I could see the benefit of using it for the pagefile. On my x64 system, I have turned the pagefile option off, all the others are on.\

Edit: I saw there was an extra page on this discussion after I posted. Jim has confirmed that you can use the extra memory in a 32-bit version of Windows. I haven't upgraded my version of XFast since I have the latest posted on ASRock's site for my motherboard.

[parsec]

Re: Asrock Z77 Pro4-M xfast ram utility

Canned 'Ho, what will they think of next...