3gig installed, windows 7 64 bit (2gig usable) problem?

[TaurineLittle]

hey guys, just wanted to get one thing clear, i know that this is the forum for Gskill, but i dont actually own gskill memory, i have Corsair (but they are unable to help me =/) and ive looked on your forum and seen a few posts like mine but they are all running gskill and i assume there are differences in the voltage and specs.
but i was wandering if anyone here is able to help me out if possible?
Im running Windows 7 ultimate 64bit , i have 3 gig of DDR3 ram 666mhz (CM3X1G1600C9). now when i look in the windows system tool it tells me that i have 3 gig, but only 2 gig is usable? tbh im not sure if its meant to be like that or not, but i seem to be constantly using around 50% of my ram.
and i was also curious if i bought more ram (say another 6 gig) would it still say only 2 gig is usable?
btw im running:
Intel i7 930 2.8ghz
Gigabyte X58A-Ud3R

any help at would be greatly appreciated

[GSKILL TECH]

Did you input the proper settings? If settings are correct, then maybe the memory is bad. If you purchase another 6GB, say G.Skill, it will show the full 6GB.

Do you have the latest BIOS?

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

[Tradesman]

If not reading all the DRAM, may have a bad stick or two, may have a bad DIMM socket (or more), could have thermal compound in the socket/on the bottom of the CPU, bent pins in the socket, etc, etc. I'd see if you could A) test each stick individually with Memtest B) if all good borrow sticks or pick up a different set and test with

[TaurineLittle]

Which settings are you refering to GskillTech?
and with the bios i know i dont have the latest one, but still not sure how to upgrade it, ive got @bios and when ever i try to get it to install the new bios i get an error =/ im assuming i may have to install it through bios, but not 100% sure how
and i know i havent got any thermal grease or any substance in the sockets or bent pins, i have built 3 computers and take extreme care when building all of them.
if it is the sticks of ram, i was actually thinking of getting GSkill, heard great things about your ram i was looking at getting two of these F3-16000CL9D-4GBTDD but would that be compatible with my motherboard (Gigabyte X58A-Ud3R)? ive lookin in the list and cant seem to find it... if its not what ram would you recommend (around the same specs)?

[Tradesman]

Rather than mixing sets and since you have a triple channel mobo, might look at any of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&Pagesize=20

the Trident-Turbulence you mention are very hard to find

[TaurineLittle]

hmm fair enough, but yeah if there was something wrong with the sticks that i have atm i would probably just give them to someone less fortunate than i :P and i would buy a new set, i looked at the site that you linked and im liking the ones below very much
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231464
was thinking of getting two sets but 24 gig of ram is a bit of an over kill isnt it?
also any cooling recommendations for these sticks?

[Tradesman]

For most everybody, 24 is definitely overkill, 12 is generally a bit of overkill even for most anyone, it can come in real handy though depending on what you do, I've got 16GB of the Snipers (1866 sticks) in my P67/2600K box but I do a lot of things with it (video editing/GIS/CAD/simulation/compiling/DBMS/etc...if you find your not using it all can always set up a RAMDisk to speed the system up more also

[TaurineLittle]

yeah, basically the only really demanding thing i do i gaming and video and audio converting... thats about it, but i ran mem test and nothing came up althought it only registered that i had 2 gig =/ haha im not sure but it may be possible that i have only dual channel ram =/ would that be the reason why?