ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

[havasuphto]

I have an Asrock oc formula Z77 with an intel i7 3770k. running window 7/64, fresh install. i have 32gb ddr 3 ram installed, and on installation of all the software that came with my mb, I made a 2gb Xfast ram drive. I have several questions involving this utility-and I could not find the answer using google.
1. How do I get rid of the 2gb partition, and regain all 32gb of my ram?

2. How do I enlarge the ram partition? that part is greyed out-and that is my problem now. there are times when I want to use more than 2gb or ram, as a ram drive.

3. How do I make it smaller?? again, that part of the software is greyed out.

To get rid of the existing ram partition, i have tried; turning off Xfast ram, rebooting, going into windows disk management, and trying to delete the partition. it still appears-but is unallocated, and I can't get it to release the ram no matter what I do. I thought if I could completely remove that 2gb existing ram partition, then I could make another one with the Xfast ram software-but, it appears it's not that easy.

why can't you have the ability to simply do what I want to do in the questions above??!!

[havasuphto]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

112 views, and nobody can help???
bump

[parsec]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

First, all the control and configuration of an XFast RAM disk is done through the AXTU utility. Trying to manipulate it with Windows will not work.

AFAIK, the only way to change the size of this RAM Disk when one currently exists, is to first click Stop on its AXTU configuration page. You may be able to change the size after the Stop, and if not you must reboot. A few small messages are displayed on that screen when you do something, wait for them to be displayed.

When you are able to change the size, you must click Apply, and then Start. You will then need to reboot.

That's how it works, not the greatest but you must play by its rules.

[havasuphto]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

First, all the control and configuration of an XFast RAM disk is done through the AXTU utility. Trying to manipulate it with Windows will not work.

AFAIK, the only way to change the size of this RAM Disk when one currently exists, is to first click Stop on its AXTU configuration page. You may be able to change the size after the Stop, and if not you must reboot. A few small messages are displayed on that screen when you do something, wait for them to be displayed.

When you are able to change the size, you must click Apply, and then Start. You will then need to reboot.

That's how it works, not the greatest but you must play by its rules.

You lost me at AXTU Utility....have no idea what that is. I have Asrock Formula drive utility(tried turning all the ram drive stuff of-rebooting, etc.-see my OP-could no re-allocate the space that was created as a ram disk-couldn't delete it, couldn't make it bigger-could only re-partition it, and/or rename it).
The other programs I have are; 3TB+ Unlocker, Instant Boost(not being used at the moment), Asrock Rapid OC(not being used), Smart Connect(not used), Asrock Timing Config(not used).

Are you talking about something in the BIOS? Totally confused here.

[- wardog -]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

Yea, the Formula series has their own separate util, Formula Drive, that is way different from the ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility(AXTU) that non-Formula users have.

Same basic controls of AXTU and then some all within a much dressed up UI.

[- wardog -]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

Formula Drive

[havasuphto]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

Formula Drive

Yep, that's what I have.
Now if some learned individual would be so kind as to walk me through the answer's to my 3 questions above, it would be much appreciated ;)

[parsec]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

Sorry I forgot your board has a different program that includes XFast RAM. But basically the XFast RAM configuration screen should be the same.

So you don't have a Start/Stop button, and an Apply button? There's a video on your boards page that demonstrates all the XFast features, and the XFast RAM screen looked almost identical to mine.

On my board's XFast RAM program, if you click the Stop button and let that complete in a few seconds, and then reboot, the RAM drive is gone. I have created a few RAM disks (one at a time) and then later removed them by clicking Stop and rebooting. Since yours isn't, something went wrong or was done wrong. You said you tried "turning off Xfast ram", what did you do?

Your RAM disk is obviously corrupted or has not been removed properly. Your options are to try to revive it, or delete it and start over. Since the RAM Disk partition still exists, have you tried:

Trying to start it again in the XFast RAM screen? If you can do that, then you can try to properly remove it with the Stop and reboot process.

Clearing the CMOS?

The XFast RAM disk has a Windows Service that it needs to function, called AsrRamDisk. Check for it in Task Manager, and Services to see if it is running.

[havasuphto]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

Yea, I've seen the video-but it's really now help.
I have hit the off buttons of all 6 of the items that I used as a ram drive, then disabled xram save, and also load at start-up, etc. The ram drive is still there!!!!
I have AsrFD.exe running in task manager(currently running the ram drive).

I'm thinking that I need to uncheck Asrock Formula drive-so it doesn't even load at start up. then check task manager to see if that program is still running-kill it, and theoretically the ram disk should just disappear.
Anyone got any other tips-or see something I'm not doing right in the original post?

[havasuphto]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

Help!!!! I am stuck with a permanent ASR_RAM drive on F:
I have tried, the above in my original post. I have also deleted the ASrock utility software, deleted the start-up entries, and even went into Window 7 device manager, and deleted the drive, and every time I reboot, the ASR_RAM drive loads back up, like it's a new piece of hardware!!!! Is there nothing I can do to get rid of it??!!!!

I am not touching another Asrock piece of software until I get this sorted out. It was easy to setup the ram disk-just chose the size, pick a letter, and click some boxes to tell it what you wanted on the disk. BUT, if you uncheck all those boxes, and reboot, then deleted the entire program, reboot, even delete the ram disk, reboot, it still loads the ram disk just like it's a physical part of my computer!!! Are you kidding me!!!! This is seriously maleware at it's finest.

NOW, I just want to get rid of the Ram drive completely!!! How do I do that? And, if I push the CMOS reset button, what happens when I boot my computer? Will I have to go back into the BIOS again, and show it which drive to boot from??(not a big deal-just want to know what to expect), and, I'm not sure clearing the CMOS will get rid of the ram drive.
There is something in the boot loader that is telling this stupid thing to load-even though I told it to go away!!

Any help would be much appreciated.

[havasuphto]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

I think I have the problem "solved". I decided that since I had the ram disk, and couldn't get rid of it, or make it larger, that I would re-install the Asrock utility software. After I installed the software, the ASR_RAM disk on F, was gone!!!
So, I enabled the ram disk again-but this time with 8bg of ram(I have 32gb), and it allowed me to do that, and change the drive letter.
So apparently, something went wrong during the initial install, or ??? But, I'm now able to "stop" the ram drive, and I think I'm able to get rid of it if I want to. But, this has been a very frustrating experience.

Of those of you that have RAM drives, and do video editing or photoshop(assuming your using win? 64 bit), and have 32gb of ram-what size would you say worked the best? I realize there is no "magic number", and I also realize that in the event of a power failure, anything on the ram drive is gone......just wondering if 8gb is too big/small???
Also, I have the following settings; ready boost(230mb-should I make this larger/smaller?) ON, basically I have all the options set to ON, and backup Xfast RAM checked(I realize this will cause a big slowdown on shutdown, as the files in the ram drive are written to the SSD drive-but before I had this checked, I had to log into each website I was a member of, each time I booted the computer-big PITA)-should I not have that checked??

Thanks for the help.

[parsec]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

Ready Boost is a relic feature from XP, where a USB flash or other drive was used as extra memory, you don't need that at all with all your memory and a SSD, turn that off.

Why turn all the options on? Are you using all the browsers listed? All that does is create cache folders on the RAM drive that you're not using.

The pagefile on it is also a complete waste, why ASR put that on there makes no sense. The pagefile is used instead of memory when a PC has very little memory, 4GB or less. The pagefile is normally on a regular disk, so is super slow compared to memory. Think about it, put the pagefile in RAM memory (disk) when the pagefile is used to replace memory you "don't have", but you really have so much memory that the pagefile will never be needed. So you put the pagefile in RAM, which reduces the amount of RAM available to the PC for use, which could then cause the pagefile to be used due to lack of memory? Is that crazy, or what?

I turned on the pagefile on this RAM disk when I had 16GB of memory. The space was allocated on the RAM drive, but never used! I checked the Windows Resource monitor, and it showed I wrote nothing to the pagefile. Turned that off, lesson learned.

The temporary files on RAM disk is a good thing, it will speed up anything using temporary files. But if you might need something in a temp folder, it is gone if you shutdown.

The browser cache on a RAM disk is good, but with the drawback you've seen. When you login to a website and save the password, a "cookie" is saved in the browser cache that allows the automatic login when you go to a website. But put the cache in a RAM disk and turn off the PC, those cookies are gone. That's why you need to login, but that only happens if you shutdown the PC. Apparently, backing up the RAM disk is not restoring the cookies, you said you checked the backup option, but you still had to login with a RAM disk backup?

The size of the RAM drive for media editing depends on the size of files you are working with. If one or more of the files you have open add up to less than 8GB, then that amount is fine. If not, make it larger. It depends on your usage.

[havasuphto]

Re: ASrock Xfast ram utility-need help

I mentioned that it wasn't saving my browsing log-in's-but, since I have the box checked that backs up the ram drive on shut-down, I'm assuming it writes the cookies and temp files onto the SSD drive. I'd rather have it do that once on each shutdown, than multiple times. so that works.
I will turn off ready boost, and page file-since with even 24gigs of available ram, i don't think I even need a page file, do I?? And, can I change the drive that the page file is written to in Windows 7?? Or do I even need pagefile.sys?
I use firefox mostly. but I don't see any harm in leaving IE checked also, for now.

As for temp files, the program has that little box at the bottom to save the files on the ramdisk to the SSD drive. It takes a bit longer to shut-down and start up, but I don't care about that.

Also, I discovered why I had the problem. what you need to do to remove or change the size of the ramdisk, is to first push "stop", before turning off all the little buttons. once you just turn off the little buttons, "stop" disappears, and the button is replaced with "apply". so while I was turning off all the programs from writing to the ramdisk, I never stopped it. so it was going to be there forever until it was stopped by the program that made it.

Question; if the temp directly on the ram disk gets full-will it automatically switch to the temp file on the SSD/OS drive?