All, I have recompiled my kernel, even though I was already running the pae kernel. I have looked at the settings, but to no avail, it only sees 2.9 gig. The motherboard and bios report 4 gig.
Any suggestions? What about going to 64 bit kernel?
TIA,
Gary
If your machine was _64bit you would have the _64bit kernel, you can only use that kernel if you machine is _64.
If you are using a 32bit machine you need to use the PAE kernel to address the 4GB RAM you have.
No special compiling needed - just use the default_64 if that is your hardware or PAE kernel for 32bit, from the repo’s
kimble01 adjusted his/her AFB on Friday 08 May 2009 05:16 to write:
>
> All, I have recompiled my kernel, even though I was already running the
> pae kernel. I have looked at the settings, but to no avail, it only sees
> 2.9 gig. The motherboard and bios report 4 gig.
Where are you getting the info from about your ram in Suse?
If your are using the pae kernel then you should be able to access all the
physical ram in your machine, no probs.
>
> Any suggestions? What about going to 64 bit kernel?
If the pae don`t see it then I doubt that changing arch will either ( that
is if you are on a 64bit machine of course ) 
What does top report?
HTH
–
Mark
Nil illigitimi carborundum
The cpu may support PAE but the motherboard may not. You may need to enable an option in the BIOS. Sometimes manufacturers do not implement PAE support. If you have a 64 bit capable cpu, that should solve the issue. Test by booting a 64bit livecd.
All,
Thanks for the replies. If the bios sees it, the os should too, correct or incorrect assumption?
“Top” reports 3072 total memory.
<edit>
This is a Gateway MP8708 Intel Centrino Duo, the specs say 4gig installable ram.
If BIOS sees it, No you may still not see it in the OS.
You still didn’t clarify if you are 32 or 64 bit, or which kernel you are actually using. It’s also possible that if you have just added RAM, it may not necessarily be compatible with the brand you already had.
do
uname -a
post result
Sorry, Intel Centrino Duo is 32 bit, I’m using the pae kernel, and the ram was purchased and installed new together. Uname results:
Linux kimblelinuxtop 2.6.27.21-0.1-pae #1 SMP 2009-03-31 14:50:44 +0200 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
If the RAM is say in 2x2GB
Take each one out and try one on it’s own - do this with both
Do they both work as individual 2GB units?
Ok, so I’ve completed that little exercise! Both sticks report 1.9 gig!
So your board does not seem to support pae (the pae-kernel surely does, for example it does here).
free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: **3952** 2397 1555 0 509 1401
-/+ buffers/cache: 485 3467
uname -r
2.6.27.21-0.1-pae
cat /etc/SuSE-release
openSUSE 11.1 (i586)
VERSION = 11.1
Either you live with “only” 3 Gig on 32 Bit or you use 64 Bit.
Does your video card use shared memory? Maybe that’s where the missing mem is.
Answering/Asking in FIFO:
What would be involved in going 64bit? Upgrade the kernel or reinstall? And my hardware is not 64 bit, so would it still work?
Thanks, I’ll look at that link.
The video card only uses 8m of shared memory, so that shouldn’t be it.
Thanks everyone for the help.
dmesg | grep e820
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f800 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009f800 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000dc000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 00000000bf680000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 00000000bf680000 - 00000000bf700000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 00000000bf700000 - 00000000c0000000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000e0000000 - 00000000f0000000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec10000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fed00000 - 00000000fed00400 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fed14000 - 00000000fed1a000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fed1c000 - 00000000fed90000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ff000000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
No further lines below this.
This is looking more and more like a bios issue, and I have attempted to update the bios but I can’t seem to get that to work. I have the updated bios, and I’ve seen the opensource bios, what would you recommend?
Reinstall is the only way that makes sense.
If your CPU is not 64-bit capable, it will not work (but the installer will stop before anything is changed telling you exactly that).