Am a noob at this , but i had 1GB of ram in my dell precision workstation. Took that out put in 2x2GB, checked the dell it saw the 4gb. Started up SUSE, it only registers about 3, 3115268k.
Here is my uname -a output, not sure what else i would need to provide you folks.
Linux ws-0522 2.6.22.5-31-default #1 SMP 2007/09/21 22:29:00 UTC i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Thanks in advance
Ed Grimm
Change to PAE kernel - if that does not help, you’re running into the “4GB… but PCI mapping” barrier.
It’ll take some time to explain the issues with 32bit and 4GB minus reserved memory.
EdGrimm wrote:
> Am a noob at this , but i had 1GB of ram in my dell precision
> workstation. Took that out put in 2x2GB, checked the dell it saw the
> 4gb. Started up SUSE, it only registers about 3, 3115268k.
>
> Here is my uname -a output, not sure what else i would need to provide
> you folks.
>
> Linux ws-0522 2.6.22.5-31-default #1 SMP 2007/09/21 22:29:00 UTC i686
> i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Install and boot the -pae kernel, you can later remove the -default kernel.
Kind regards,
Andreas Stieger
most likely the motherboard or BIOS has a 3 gig limit…
google “motherboard 3 gig memory limit dell precision” (without the
quote signs) brings lots to read…
google on your specific Dell’s model number and some variation of
the above and you will probably learn if the limit is the board OR the
bios…and, maybe a BIOS flash will raise the limit…
if your board/BIOS is not limited to 3 gigs then you need to boot from
a CD/DVD and run memtest until you figure out which stick (or socket)
is broke…[hint, text one stick at a time, and it can take a LONG
time to fully test a stick]
good luck Ed, and welcome…
–
tertiary
On 10.3 the “pae”-kernel was called “bigsmp”.
Other possibility => switch to 64 bit version.
32 bits operating systems can only address 3,3GB RAM.
That’s a software limit and not an issue.
Check google about this limit, it’ll explain how and why this is like that.
If you installed windows you would get the same issue.
If you wantr the full 4 or more GB of RAM you need a 64 bits version of your operating system.
> If you want the full 4 or more GB of RAM you need a 64 bits version of
> your operating system.
yep, it used to be that way, but ‘they’ changed the rules while you
were not watching, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
and, we have available a pae kernel…so, if his motherboard and BIOS
allow a full four gigs of RAM, he can install the pae kernel and use
it all, and more…
–
nom de plume
I know that but it doesn’t work quite well, the hardware needs to support it and it’s not available on every system, especialy not on low budget home systems.
I have quite a lot of expensive machines here at home and none of them allow me to use the full 4 gigs of RAM even with PAE enabled, not in windows and not in linux.
LRE wrote:
> the hardware needs to support it
THAT was already established by “The Real Elvis” before you came in
and proclaimed that 4 GB of RAM could NOT be accessed on a 32 bit system…
HELLO, if the hardware and software (BIOS and kernel) support it, then
what you said (“32 bits operating systems can only address 3,3GB
RAM.”) is no longer correct.
it USED to be correct as “nom de plume” said.
–
solo