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I have 2 8gb RAM sticks on my motherboard. One is faulty on some bytes and is giving me BSOD once in a while.

Is it possible to disable one of them without removing it physically? I want to keep it inside the motherboard as I dual boot with Xubuntu and I can block the fauly bits there, and as far as I know, it is impossible to block them in Windows.

Pacha
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    I asked a [related question](http://superuser.com/questions/420051/running-windows-with-defective-ram) a while ago. While there doesn't seem to be any way to accurately block specific bits, you may have some luck with some of the answers (e.g. `truncatememory`, which should let you exclude a large chunk). In any case, modifying the amount of 'available' RAM probably has to be done before Windows itself is loaded - so, in the bootloader. – Bob Jul 18 '13 at 01:54
  • I saw that question (I actually did some research before asking this). But I don't want to block certain blocks, I just want to block the entire stick. – Pacha Jul 18 '13 at 02:07
  • Is the memory from one of the bigger memory houses? It might be under lifetime warrenty and it might be less work to replace it. But as far as windows goes, there is no way I know of to disable it. Save maybe in bios and setting a 4GB cap. But I haven't seen anything in BIOS to do this in a long long while. – MikeAWood Jul 18 '13 at 02:10
  • @MikeAWood Yes it is, it is Corsair. But I am from a third world country and I don't think there is any official support – Pacha Jul 18 '13 at 02:15
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    Ah, it might be worth just asking them. Certainly couldn't hurt. – MikeAWood Jul 18 '13 at 02:18
  • @MikeAWood I did some research and they tell you to send the fauly RAM to the US. And it costs more or less 2/3 of the price, so it isn't a viable option. Anyway, this computer was used as a server and I don't need more than 8gb, it is just annoying to have BSOD frequently – Pacha Jul 18 '13 at 02:25

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Do you know which bytes - are they consistent with each pass of Memtest86?

Under Linux you can use the BadRAM feature to tell Linux never to use addresses in that range. I've never had to use it, but read this for more information.

With Windows, you have various switches (BURNMEMORY used to be the one to use on XP) that you can use with bcdedit (or a BCD editor like EasyBCD) that will tell Windows not to use any memory above an address. Windows doesn't have anything like the BadRAM feature where you can tell it not to use specific addresses that I know of.

Swap your RAM sticks around until the faulty module is at the highest address possible for this reason.

LawrenceC
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  • `truncatememory` is the equivalent from Vista onwards (which is exactly why I mentioned it in my comment on the question, incidentally). – Bob Jul 18 '13 at 04:06