ram 4 gig apears 3.2

mecelec415 · 01-10-2010, 04:04 AM

i just upgraded the ram in my system put 2 new 2 gig sticks .
but monitor shows it as 3.2 gig inderviually both sticks come up as 2 gig id like my system to show them as 4 gig. any ides?
im using mandriva 2009.1 powerpack kde 4.2

ramram29 · 01-10-2010, 06:38 AM

You may need to re-compile your kernel to support 4GB+ memory. Also this sometimes happens when the video card takes up system memory.

lugoteehalt · 01-10-2010, 07:20 AM

It probably depends on what tool you use to report the size of the memory.

How about installing lshw, list hardware.

Quote:

A small tool to provide detailed information on the hardware configuration of the ▒
machine. It can report exact memory configuration, firmware version, mainboard ▒
configuration, CPU version and speed, cache configuration, bus speed, etc. on ▒
DMI-capable x86 systems, on some PowerPC machines (PowerMac G4 is known to work) and ▒
AMD64. ▒
▒
Information can be output in plain text, HTML or XML.

ronlau9 · 01-10-2010, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mecelec415

i just upgraded the ram in my system put 2 new 2 gig sticks .
but monitor shows it as 3.2 gig inderviually both sticks come up as 2 gig id like my system to show them as 4 gig. any ides?
im using mandriva 2009.1 powerpack kde 4.2

You can start in BIOS settings to check how many free memory you have .
You nearly never get all the installed memory as use able memory .
Some is taken by the system it self and that part is not showing in linux.

jkerr82508 · 01-10-2010, 10:05 AM

Quote:

monitor shows it as 3.2 gig

This is what will be reported by kernel-desktop. If you want to use all 4gig, then install kernel-server.

Jim

mecelec415 · 01-15-2010, 03:51 PM

i ran lshw
it reported

Code:

*-memory                                                                                       
          description: System Memory                                                                
          physical id: 3a                                                                           
          slot: System board or motherboard                                                         
          size: 4GiB                                                                                
        *-bank:0                                                                                    
             description: DIMM DDR Synchronous 800 MHz (1.2 ns)                                     
             product: PartNum0                                                                      
             vendor: Manufacturer0                                                                  
             physical id: 0                                                                         
             serial: SerNum0                                                                        
             slot: DIMM0                                                                            
             size: 2GiB                                                                             
             width: 64 bits                                                                         
             clock: 800MHz (1.2ns)                                                                  
        *-bank:1                                                                                    
             description: DIMM [empty]                                                              
             product: PartNum1                                                                      
             vendor: Manufacturer1                                                                  
             physical id: 1                                                                         
             serial: SerNum1                                                                        
             slot: DIMM1                                                                            
        *-bank:2                                                                                    
             description: DIMM DDR Synchronous 800 MHz (1.2 ns)                                     
             product: PartNum2                                                                      
             vendor: Manufacturer2                                                                  
             physical id: 2                                                                         
             serial: SerNum2                                                                        
             slot: DIMM2                                                                            
             size: 2GiB                                                                             
             width: 64 bits                                                                         
             clock: 800MHz (1.2ns)                                                                  
        *-bank:3                                                                                    
             description: DIMM [empty]                                                              
             product: PartNum3                                                                      
             vendor: Manufacturer3                                                                  
             physical id: 3                                                                         
             serial: SerNum3                                                                        
             slot: DIMM3

is it normal that kde only reports 3.2 gig
or should i put the ram in different slots?
not really shaw how to recomplie the kernal? how do i do that?
thanks for for relpys

lugoteehalt · 01-16-2010, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mecelec415

is it normal that kde only reports 3.2 gig
or should i put the ram in different slots?

Code:

top - 15:08:07 up 58 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.05, 0.08, 0.10
Tasks: 125 total,   1 running, 124 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  1.3%us,  0.2%sy,  0.0%ni, 98.5%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   4061656k total,   784624k used,  3277032k free,    25484k buffers
Swap:  3903752k total,        0k used,  3903752k free,   350844k cached

lugo@fido:~$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       4061656     789868    3271788          0      25684     353940
-/+ buffers/cache:     410244    3651412
Swap:      3903752          0    3903752

As it happens I also have 4GB of RAM and am running KDE. Ran the command top, see above; ran the command free, see above.

If you say how to run the KDE thing you are using I'll try it and see what it says.

From the lshw it *appears* you have four memory slots and have put the things in the first (0) and third. On the surface this appears a little counter intuitive - they might be better in first and second - but do not know at all.

I'd just try running top and if it says roughly 4GB then assume it's alright unless you get good reason to think otherwise. I've never used 2 GB things myself so a bit in the dark.

mecelec415 · 01-16-2010, 01:55 PM

i just i ran lshw from the konsole as root i didnt have to install it from the package manger it was all ready installed there is a gui for it i didnt intall it.
on my motherboard dimm 0 & 3 are both yellow in color with with the other 2 being black in color.

GrapefruiTgirl · 01-16-2010, 02:46 PM

Sounds normal to me, for a kernel that is not compiled with 64Gib+ support (the largest memory support model).

/var/log/dmesg after bootup may also give clues to how the onboard memory is being interpreted by the kernel, but my suggestion is to compile the kernel with 64Gib support.

Another consideration is this: not every motherboard's memory controller is able to make use of the full, "Advertised" maximum memory capability that you can possibly plug into the board. For example, a motherboard that allows 4Gib max memory to be istalled, might have a memory controller that is limited to accessing less than 4Gib. Sounds stupid, but this is the way it is; I suspect that better quality motherboards, and/or NEWER motherboards, suffer from this less.

For comparison, though I'm running XFCE, I also have 4 Gib of memory installed:

Code:

bash-3.1# top                                                      
top - 16:52:48 up 13 days, 18:52,  5 users,  load average: 0.08, 0.07, 0.08
Tasks: 125 total,   1 running, 124 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  3.6%us,  1.6%sy,  0.6%ni, 93.6%id,  0.5%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   4057892k total,  3946964k used,   110928k free,   314296k buffers
Swap:  1020088k total,    72956k used,   947132k free,  2193896k cached

bash-3.1# free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       4057892    3947128     110764          0     314296    2193952
-/+ buffers/cache:    1438880    2619012
Swap:      1020088      72956     947132

Sasha

jkerr82508 · 01-16-2010, 04:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrapefruiTgirl

but my suggestion is to compile the kernel with 64Gib support.

This is unnecessary. As I've already pointed out, Mandriva provides a PAE enabled kernel. OP just needs to install the kernel-server-latest package from the repo.

http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Howto/Mandriva_Kernels

Jim

GrapefruiTgirl · 01-16-2010, 04:38 PM

@ jkerr,

OK, thanks, I didn't realize (or didn't fully read) that so many Mandriva kernels were available pre-compiled! One way or the other, the 64Gib support is desired, and yes, downloading a kernel would be much easier + faster than building one.

Sasha