1GB RAM is missing.

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Debian User

Hi all,

I just builded mo own x86 machine , and I am quite surprised ,because
1GB of RAM is missing (1GB of 4GB) and my Debian's boot time is 10
minutes.

Moreover when I take off one RAM stick (which will give me 3GB RAM) my
system boots in 40 seconds - I am amazed.

All of RAM sticks are fine, I tested all of them together and
separately. I just cannot use them together.

My problem is I want to use 4GB RAM at full power, and have no idea
what might be the problem.
I must use 3GB to make my system booting quickly.(not only booting,
system works faster with 3GB)

Please save my poor life. :)

And the machine is

AMD Athlon x2 4000+ (I use 32bit Debian now)
MSI K9A Platinum motherboard
2 sets of Geil 2gb dual channel 800mhz (2x 1GB)
Seagate SATA 500GB HDD

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1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Florian Lindner on Sun, 2007-10-21 12:00.

Am Sonntag, 21. Oktober 2007 schrieb pgega:
> I just builded mo own x86 machine , and I am quite surprised ,because
> 1GB of RAM is missing (1GB of 4GB) and my Debian's boot time is 10
> minutes.
>
> Moreover when I take off one RAM stick (which will give me 3GB RAM) my
> system boots in 40 seconds - I am amazed.
>
> All of RAM sticks are fine, I tested all of them together and
> separately. I just cannot use them together.
>
>
> My problem is I want to use 4GB RAM at full power, and have no idea
> what might be the problem.
> I must use 3GB to make my system booting quickly.(not only booting,
> system works faster with 3GB)

Hi!
have you compiled your own kernel? Check if HIGHMEM4G is activated (you will
find it in Processor type and featueres in the kernel config).

Regards,

Florian

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Tim Gruene on Sun, 2007-10-21 12:00.

Could you sent your 'dmesg' output. It might contain a clue about how your
system deals with the memory and why.

Tim

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007, pgega wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>
>
>
> I just builded mo own x86 machine , and I am quite surprised ,because
> 1GB of RAM is missing (1GB of 4GB) and my Debian's boot time is 10
> minutes.
>
> Moreover when I take off one RAM stick (which will give me 3GB RAM) my
> system boots in 40 seconds - I am amazed.
>
> All of RAM sticks are fine, I tested all of them together and
> separately. I just cannot use them together.
>
>
> My problem is I want to use 4GB RAM at full power, and have no idea
> what might be the problem.
> I must use 3GB to make my system booting quickly.(not only booting,
> system works faster with 3GB)
>
>
> Please save my poor life. :)
>
>
> And the machine is
>
> AMD Athlon x2 4000+ (I use 32bit Debian now)
> MSI K9A Platinum motherboard
> 2 sets of Geil 2gb dual channel 800mhz (2x 1GB)
> Seagate SATA 500GB HDD
>
>
> --

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Wakko Warner on Thu, 2007-10-25 17:00.

Again, please do not top post. Also, keep list mails on the list.

Pawe?? G??ga wrote:
> i have a kernel compiled fod 4gb , can this be the reason of these lacks ?

The way it works, there are 3 memory models. 1gb, 4gb, and 64gb. This is
NOT the amount of memory in your machine.

1gb will give you access to upto 900mb but definately not 1024mb if you have
1gb actually installed. For this, you need 4gb.

4gb will give you access to upto about 3072mb of memory. This would be used
if you have more than 1gb of memory but not more than 3gb.

64gb will give you access to all of your memory (I do not know the upper
limit on this, but I'm almost certain it's not 64gb). This also enabled PAE
extensions. I don't know what motherboards support PAE, my original
understanding was that only machines that handle more than 4gb of physical
memory supported PAE and kernels compiled for PAE would only run on those
machines. I was wrong on that. Most recent boards I've dealt with (pIII
class and above) work just fine with PAE extensions even though hold less
than 1gb of memory. This also enables 64-bit memory addressing (I think
that was the term. See the kconfig for the option).

Be sure that your replies also go to the list.

> 2007/10/24, Wakko Warner :
> >
> > pgega wrote:
> >
> > Please do not top post.
> >
> > > I just installed AMD64 Debian, put 4th RAM stick, but new sysytem does
> > > not see the memory, even if I set mem=3900M in grub.
> > >
> > > I completly do not know what to do now.
> >
> > I'm using i386 debian with a custom kernel. I'm running on xeon dual core
> > processors. I did not set mem= on anything, but I do have the kernel
> > compiled for 64gb ram. Using 2.6.23 and I notice no slowdowns having 4gb
> > of
> > ram.
> >
> > > On Oct 24, 1:20 am, Wakko Warner wrote:
> > > > Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > > > Modern 32 bit processors and chipsets map around those limitations.
> > > >
> > > > > For many years there have been 32-bit server motherboards that
> > > > > accept and use (in both Linux and Windows) up to 64GB RAM.
> > > >
> > > > I have a SuperMicro X7DA3+ board with 4gb of memory installed. Here's
> > what
> > > > I see:
> > > > # uname -a
> > > > Linux vegeta 2.6.20-pae #4 SMP PREEMPT Wed Apr 4 18:10:06 EDT 2007
> > i686 GNU/Linux
> > > > # free
> > > > total used free shared buffers
> > cached
> > > > Mem: 4150372 709824 3440548 0 143332
> > 247752
> > > > -/+ buffers/cache: 318740 3831632
> > > > Swap: 0 0 0
> > > > #
> > > >
> > > > I have not compiled my kernel for 64-bit yet. Given this I may
> > not. I
> > > > really don't want to change my userland to 64-bit right now.
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Lab tests show that use of micro$oft causes cancer in lab animals
> > > > Got Gas???
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to
> > > > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to
> > > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
> >
> > >
> > --
> > Lab tests show that use of micro$oft causes cancer in lab animals
> > Got Gas???
> >
--
Lab tests show that use of micro$oft causes cancer in lab animals
Got Gas???

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Andrei Popescu on Sun, 2007-10-21 16:00.

On Sun, Oct 21, 2007 at 08:58:44AM -0700, pgega wrote:

> My problem is I want to use 4GB RAM at full power, and have no idea
> what might be the problem.
> I must use 3GB to make my system booting quickly.(not only booting,
> system works faster with 3GB)

[...]

> AMD Athlon x2 4000+ (I use 32bit Debian now)
> MSI K9A Platinum motherboard
> 2 sets of Geil 2gb dual channel 800mhz (2x 1GB)
> Seagate SATA 500GB HDD

Make sure you have a -k7 kernel. I think the -486 ones don't have
CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y set. And are you sure the motherboard supports 4GiB
RAM? Also try swapping the sticks around.

Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by pgega on Sun, 2007-10-21 18:00.

Yes, Motherboard supports 8GiB,

Here is dmesg output for 3 of 4 RAM sticks
http://pastie.caboo.se/109470
Might be helpfull.

This morning I will paste Dmesg output for 4 of 4 RAM sticks.

Andrei, do not hurt me , but I am not too familiar with k7 ?
Is it just option of kernel ,like 2.6.23.1-k7 or more like system
architecture x86 , am64 etc?.

I use AMD 64 Athlon X2 is K7 for me ?

I tried swaping all of them in any possible order, none of sticks is
broken.

Kind regards,
Pawel Gega

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Tim Gruene on Sun, 2007-10-21 19:00.

If -k8 exists, you can use it. It is just a flavour of the kernel with
some features that are only available for k8 and above (similar to -i686
kernels, etc.)

Your dmesg does suggest that the kernel knows 4GB, but HIGHMEM4G is
probably set to 'no'.

in that case, according to the kernel documentation:
"If you are compiling a kernel which will never run on a machine with
more than 1 Gigabyte total physical RAM, answer "off" here (default
choice and suitable for most users). This will result in a "3GB/1GB"
split: 3GB are mapped so that each process sees a 3GB virtual memory
space and the remaining part of the 4GB virtual memory space is used
by the kernel to permanently map as much physical memory as
possible."

Using an appropriate kernel should solve your problem.

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007, pgega wrote:

> Yes, Motherboard supports 8GiB,
>
> Here is dmesg output for 3 of 4 RAM sticks
> http://pastie.caboo.se/109470
> Might be helpfull.
>
> This morning I will paste Dmesg output for 4 of 4 RAM sticks.
>
> Andrei, do not hurt me , but I am not too familiar with k7 ?
> Is it just option of kernel ,like 2.6.23.1-k7 or more like system
> architecture x86 , am64 etc?.
>
> I use AMD 64 Athlon X2 is K7 for me ?
>
> I tried swaping all of them in any possible order, none of sticks is
> broken.
>
> Kind regards,
> Pawel Gega
>
>
> --

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by pgega on Mon, 2007-10-22 01:00.

Thanks for that.

Here's mdesg output for 4GB insalled?
http://pastie.caboo.se/109588

And there si a question , how to get k7 (or k8) kernel for the newest
kernel 2.6.23.1 ?

btw I use own - compiled kernel , but here are results of search for
k7 in Debian SID repositoires
http://pastie.caboo.se/109590
And there is no k8 in use , probably.
I could not find anything in repositories.

On Oct 22, 12:20 am, Tim Gruene wrote:
> If -k8 exists, you can use it. It is just a flavour of the kernel with
> some features that are only available for k8 and above (similar to -i686
> kernels, etc.)
>
> Your dmesg does suggest that the kernel knows 4GB, but HIGHMEM4G is
> probably set to 'no'.
>
> in that case, according to the kernel documentation:
> "If you are compiling a kernel which will never run on a machine with
> more than 1 Gigabyte total physical RAM, answer "off" here (default
> choice and suitable for most users). This will result in a "3GB/1GB"
> split: 3GB are mapped so that each process sees a 3GB virtual memory
> space and the remaining part of the 4GB virtual memory space is used
> by the kernel to permanently map as much physical memory as
> possible."
>
> Using an appropriate kernel should solve your problem.
>
>
>
> On Sun, 21 Oct 2007, pgega wrote:
> > Yes, Motherboard supports 8GiB,
>
> > Here is dmesg output for 3 of 4 RAM sticks
> >http://pastie.caboo.se/109470
> > Might be helpfull.
>
> > This morning I will paste Dmesg output for 4 of 4 RAM sticks.
>
> > Andrei, do not hurt me , but I am not too familiar with k7 ?
> > Is it just option of kernel ,like 2.6.23.1-k7 or more like system
> > architecture x86 , am64 etc?.
>
> > I use AMD 64 Athlon X2 is K7 for me ?
>
> > I tried swaping all of them in any possible order, none of sticks is
> > broken.
>
> > Kind regards,
> > Pawel Gega
>
> > --
> > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to
> > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
>
> --

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Tim Gruene on Mon, 2007-10-22 01:00.

According to packages.debian.org, the latest kernel for testing in the
AMD-section is linux-image-2.6.22-2-k7.

If you needa later kernel version (why, it is pretty recent), you need to
compile it yourself. I am sure you find directions how to do that for
debian in the web.

Cheers, Tim

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007, pgega wrote:

>
> Thanks for that.
>
> Here's mdesg output for 4GB insalled?
> http://pastie.caboo.se/109588
>
> And there si a question , how to get k7 (or k8) kernel for the newest
> kernel 2.6.23.1 ?
>
> btw I use own - compiled kernel , but here are results of search for
> k7 in Debian SID repositoires
> http://pastie.caboo.se/109590
> And there is no k8 in use , probably.
> I could not find anything in repositories.
>
> On Oct 22, 12:20 am, Tim Gruene wrote:
>> If -k8 exists, you can use it. It is just a flavour of the kernel with
>> some features that are only available for k8 and above (similar to -i686
>> kernels, etc.)
>>
>> Your dmesg does suggest that the kernel knows 4GB, but HIGHMEM4G is
>> probably set to 'no'.
>>
>> in that case, according to the kernel documentation:
>> "If you are compiling a kernel which will never run on a machine with
>> more than 1 Gigabyte total physical RAM, answer "off" here (default
>> choice and suitable for most users). This will result in a "3GB/1GB"
>> split: 3GB are mapped so that each process sees a 3GB virtual memory
>> space and the remaining part of the 4GB virtual memory space is used
>> by the kernel to permanently map as much physical memory as
>> possible."
>>
>> Using an appropriate kernel should solve your problem.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 21 Oct 2007, pgega wrote:
>>> Yes, Motherboard supports 8GiB,
>>
>>> Here is dmesg output for 3 of 4 RAM sticks
>>> http://pastie.caboo.se/109470
>>> Might be helpfull.
>>
>>> This morning I will paste Dmesg output for 4 of 4 RAM sticks.
>>
>>> Andrei, do not hurt me , but I am not too familiar with k7 ?
>>> Is it just option of kernel ,like 2.6.23.1-k7 or more like system
>>> architecture x86 , am64 etc?.
>>
>>> I use AMD 64 Athlon X2 is K7 for me ?
>>
>>> I tried swaping all of them in any possible order, none of sticks is
>>> broken.
>>
>>> Kind regards,
>>> Pawel Gega
>>
>>> --
>>> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to
>>> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
>>
>> --

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Andrei Popescu on Mon, 2007-10-22 05:00.

On Sun, Oct 21, 2007 at 10:01:52PM -0700, pgega wrote:

> And there si a question , how to get k7 (or k8) kernel for the newest
> kernel 2.6.23.1 ?

Are you running custom kernels? Lacking info I assumed you are running
standard Debian kernel. You should check for option:

CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y

But I would try a standard Debian kernel first, namely linux-image-2.6.18-5-k7

HTH,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Thierry Chatelet on Mon, 2007-10-22 05:00.

On Monday 22 October 2007 11:32, Andrei Popescu wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 21, 2007 at 10:01:52PM -0700, pgega wrote:
> > And there si a question , how to get k7 (or k8) kernel for the newest
> > kernel 2.6.23.1 ?
>
> Are you running custom kernels? Lacking info I assumed you are running
> standard Debian kernel. You should check for option:
>
> CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y
>
> But I would try a standard Debian kernel first, namely
> linux-image-2.6.18-5-k7
>
> HTH,
> Andrei

I followed this link from faraway, but it seems to me that his processor is a
Amd 4000 X2. So why not install standard AMD64. He still will not see 4 Go of
ram because of BIOS limitation, but 4 Go less whatever is needed for video
and various PCI cards installed, but at least, I guess booting time would be
correct.

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by pgega on Mon, 2007-10-22 07:00.

I use x86 ,becouse when I used amd64 it was quite unstable , but do
not know how's things now.

Pasi: what was the RAM seend by BIOS , when I use 4 GiB ,bios sees
only 3052 GiB (But the MSI board can hadle up to 8 GiB)

If I would rise RAM number with GRUB (like you, 3900GiB), could I get
more then seen by bios (3052 GiB) ?

On Oct 22, 10:50 am, Thierry Chatelet wrote:
> On Monday 22 October 2007 11:32, Andrei Popescu wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Oct 21, 2007 at 10:01:52PM -0700, pgega wrote:
> > > And there si a question , how to get k7 (or k8) kernel for the newest
> > > kernel 2.6.23.1 ?
>
> > Are you running custom kernels? Lacking info I assumed you are running
> > standard Debian kernel. You should check for option:
>
> > CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y
>
> > But I would try a standard Debian kernel first, namely
> > linux-image-2.6.18-5-k7
>
> > HTH,
> > Andrei
>
> I followed this link from faraway, but it seems to me that his processor is a
> Amd 4000 X2. So why not install standard AMD64. He still will not see 4 Go of
> ram because of BIOS limitation, but 4 Go less whatever is needed for video
> and various PCI cards installed, but at least, I guess booting time would be
> correct.
>
> --

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by pgega on Mon, 2007-10-22 14:00.

Some update:

BIOS sees 4G as phisical memory and 3G under Usage memory.
All sticks are fine. Any order , any sticks ,BIOS always sees 4G
physical and 3G usage.

I set the momory variable in GRUB. It works much faser at mem=3900G
then at mem=3500G

On Oct 22, 12:50 pm, pgega wrote:
> I use x86 ,becouse when I used amd64 it was quite unstable , but do
> not know how's things now.
>
> Pasi: what was the RAM seend by BIOS , when I use 4 GiB ,bios sees
> only 3052 GiB (But the MSI board can hadle up to 8 GiB)
>
> If I would rise RAM number with GRUB (like you, 3900GiB), could I get
> more then seen by bios (3052 GiB) ?
>
> On Oct 22, 10:50 am, Thierry Chatelet wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Monday 22 October 2007 11:32, Andrei Popescu wrote:
>
> > > On Sun, Oct 21, 2007 at 10:01:52PM -0700, pgega wrote:
> > > > And there si a question , how to get k7 (or k8) kernel for the newest
> > > > kernel 2.6.23.1 ?
>
> > > Are you running custom kernels? Lacking info I assumed you are running
> > > standard Debian kernel. You should check for option:
>
> > > CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y
>
> > > But I would try a standard Debian kernel first, namely
> > > linux-image-2.6.18-5-k7
>
> > > H

>
> > I followed this link from faraway, but it seems to me that his processor is a
> > Amd 4000 X2. So why not install standard AMD64. He still will not see 4 Go of
> > ram because of BIOS limitation, but 4 Go less whatever is needed for video
> > and various PCI cards installed, but at least, I guess booting time would be
> > correct.
>
> > --
> > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to
> > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
>
> --

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Ron Johnson on Mon, 2007-10-22 05:00.

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Hash: SHA1

On 10/22/07 00:01, pgega wrote:
> Thanks for that.
>
> Here's mdesg output for 4GB insalled?
> http://pastie.caboo.se/109588
>
> And there si a question , how to get k7 (or k8) kernel for the newest
> kernel 2.6.23.1 ?

k8 == amd64 == x86_64.

You won't see it if you are using the "regular" 32-bit architecture.

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

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1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by pgega on Mon, 2007-10-22 01:00.

I am prepraing new kernel compilation , as I see HIGHMEM was set to
4GiB , shall I set to 64GiB ?

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Pasi Oja-Nisula on Mon, 2007-10-22 03:00.

On Sun, Oct 21, 2007 at 03:13:54PM -0700, pgega wrote:
> I tried swaping all of them in any possible order, none of sticks is
> broken.

I had the same kind of problems with my Soltek motherboard, although
32-bit one, so the following might not apply. But I guess it might be
a bios issue anyway, so you can try this.

In my case the kernel sees 4 GB of memory, but if I just let the kernel use
all the memory, all i/o becomes really slow. The 10 minute boot time sounds
familiar. The resolution is to limit the available memory a little.

finpasojan3:/proc# cat /proc/mtrr
reg00: base=0x00000000 ( 0MB), size=2048MB: write-back, count=1
reg01: base=0x80000000 (2048MB), size=1024MB: write-back, count=1
reg02: base=0xc0000000 (3072MB), size= 512MB: write-back, count=1
reg03: base=0xe0000000 (3584MB), size= 256MB: write-back, count=1
reg04: base=0xf0000000 (3840MB), size= 32MB: write-back, count=1
reg05: base=0xf2000000 (3872MB), size= 16MB: write-back, count=1
reg06: base=0xf5800000 (3928MB), size= 8MB: write-combining, count=2
reg07: base=0xf5000000 (3920MB), size= 8MB: write-combining, count=1

In my case it seems that the usable limit is somewhere between 3800 MB
and 3900 MB. So I set grub to limit the memory with kernel
mem-parameter. I have this in my /boot/grub/menu.lst

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-4-686
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro mem=3840M
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-4-686

Even if this is not the case, you can experiment with the mem-parameter
and find out the maximum usable amount of memory without taking out
the ram sticks.

Pasi

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by pgega on Sun, 2007-10-21 18:00.

And how to get k7 ? (or this is an option in kernel?)

Sorry for that , completly not familiar with k7.

On Oct 21, 9:30 pm, Andrei Popescu wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 21, 2007 at 08:58:44AM -0700, pgega wrote:
> > My problem is I want to use 4GB RAM at full power, and have no idea
> > what might be the problem.
> > I must use 3GB to make my system booting quickly.(not only booting,
> > system works faster with 3GB)
>
> [...]
>
> > AMD Athlon x2 4000+ (I use 32bit Debian now)
> > MSI K9A Platinum motherboard
> > 2 sets of Geil 2gb dual channel 800mhz (2x 1GB)
> > Seagate SATA 500GB HDD
>
> Make sure you have a -k7 kernel. I think the -486 ones don't have
> CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G=y set. And are you sure the motherboard supports 4GiB
> RAM? Also try swapping the sticks around.
>
> Regards,
> Andrei
> --
> If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
> (Albert Einstein)
>
> signature.asc
> 1KDownload

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Pasi Oja-Nisula on Mon, 2007-10-22 16:00.

On Mon, Oct 22, 2007 at 11:29:37AM -0000, pgega wrote:
> Pasi: what was the RAM seend by BIOS , when I use 4 GiB ,bios sees
> only 3052 GiB (But the MSI board can hadle up to 8 GiB)
>
> If I would rise RAM number with GRUB (like you, 3900GiB), could I get
> more then seen by bios (3052 GiB) ?

In my case bios reports 3903 MB. Anyway, the usable limit in my machine
is less than what the bios reports.

One instruction I have heard about these problems was to make sure
that bios setting "memory remap" is on. Whatever that is, my bios
doesn't have that.

Pasi

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by pgega on Tue, 2007-10-23 08:00.

On Oct 22, 10:00 pm, Pasi Oja-Nisula wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 22, 2007 at 11:29:37AM -0000, pgega wrote:
> > Pasi: what was the RAM seend by BIOS , when I use 4 GiB ,bios sees
> > only 3052 GiB (But the MSI board can hadle up to 8 GiB)
>
> > If I would rise RAM number with GRUB (like you, 3900GiB), could I get
> > more then seen by bios (3052 GiB) ?
>
> In my case bios reports 3903 MB. Anyway, the usable limit in my machine
> is less than what the bios reports.
>
> One instruction I have heard about these problems was to make sure
> that bios setting "memory remap" is on. Whatever that is, my bios
> doesn't have that.
>
> Pasi
>
> --

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Stephen Cormier on Tue, 2007-10-23 15:00.

On October 23, 2007 09:34:52 am pgega wrote:
> On Oct 22, 10:00 pm, Pasi Oja-Nisula wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 22, 2007 at 11:29:37AM -0000, pgega wrote:
> > > Pasi: what was the RAM seend by BIOS , when I use 4 GiB ,bios sees
> > > only 3052 GiB (But the MSI board can hadle up to 8 GiB)
> > >
> > > If I would rise RAM number with GRUB (like you, 3900GiB), could I get
> > > more then seen by bios (3052 GiB) ?
> >
> > In my case bios reports 3903 MB. Anyway, the usable limit in my machine
> > is less than what the bios reports.
> >
> > One instruction I have heard about these problems was to make sure
> > that bios setting "memory remap" is on. Whatever that is, my bios
> > doesn't have that.
> >
> > Pasi
> >
> > --
> > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to
> > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
> >
>
> OK, I will check this option,
>
> My bios reports two values:
> Physical memory : 4G
> and Usage memory 3G
>
> And, god sake, I do not know how to enable more ram, in other hand
> board supports up to 8G, none of RAM sticks is broken.

You are going to have to accept that you are never going to get all 4gb
running a 32bit install due to the limitations of using 32bit where things
need to be reserved in the 4gb which is not the case using 64bit where you
see the whole 4gb in use. I know with my machine if I boot a Knoppix Live CD
(32bit) I only see around 3.3gb useable if I use my normal Debian install
(64bit) I get the whole 4gb like below.

>$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 4052156 4023220 28936 0 52160 1714740
-/+ buffers/cache: 2256320 1795836
Swap: 1052216 88 1052128

If you want then you can read all the gory details as to why you cannot get
the entire 4gb using 32bit in the many thousands of hits in the search below
most of the time talking about windows but the same BIOS/reserved issues are
present if using GNU/Linux. BTW if you did install 8gb in your machine you
will still not get the entire eight as well.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=32+bit+4gb+memory+limit&btnG=Search

Stephen

--
GPG Public Key: http://users.eastlink.ca/~stephencormier/publickey.asc

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Ron Johnson on Tue, 2007-10-23 16:00.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 10/23/07 14:16, Stephen Cormier wrote:
[snip]
>
> You are going to have to accept that you are never going to get all 4gb
> running a 32bit install due to the limitations of using 32bit where things

At the pid level, or at the OS level?

> need to be reserved in the 4gb which is not the case using 64bit where you
> see the whole 4gb in use. I know with my machine if I boot a Knoppix Live CD
> (32bit) I only see around 3.3gb useable if I use my normal Debian install
> (64bit) I get the whole 4gb like below.

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

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1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Stephen Cormier on Tue, 2007-10-23 20:00.

On October 23, 2007 05:32:55 pm Ron Johnson wrote:
> On 10/23/07 14:16, Stephen Cormier wrote:
> [snip]
>
> > You are going to have to accept that you are never going to get all 4gb
> > running a 32bit install due to the limitations of using 32bit where
> > things
>
> At the pid level, or at the OS level?

I take it by pid you mean a process if so then it is my understanding IIRC
that on a 32bit install you are limited to 2gb maximum of memory that can be
used by a single process. The limitations I talk about here are BIOS/arch
limited where a certain amount of memory is reserved for things like your
video card, interrupts ... this has to be mapped below 4gb so a hole in the
memory has to be there for it to be used, like back in the DOS days where you
had the 15mb-16mb memory hole option in the BIOS. I believe that was just
video related though if my memory serves me but the principle is the same the
space needs to be reserved on 32bit thus lowers the total ram available on
64bit it is not needed to be reserved so you get all the memory.

> > need to be reserved in the 4gb which is not the case using 64bit where
> > you see the whole 4gb in use. I know with my machine if I boot a Knoppix
> > Live CD (32bit) I only see around 3.3gb useable if I use my normal Debian
> > install (64bit) I get the whole 4gb like below.
>
> --
> Ron Johnson, Jr.
> Jefferson LA USA
>
> Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
> Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

Stephen

--
GPG Public Key: http://users.eastlink.ca/~stephencormier/publickey.asc

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Ron Johnson on Tue, 2007-10-23 20:00.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 10/23/07 18:00, Stephen Cormier wrote:
> On October 23, 2007 05:32:55 pm Ron Johnson wrote:
>> On 10/23/07 14:16, Stephen Cormier wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>>> You are going to have to accept that you are never going to get all 4gb
>>> running a 32bit install due to the limitations of using 32bit where
>>> things
>> At the pid level, or at the OS level?
>
> I take it by pid you mean a process if so then it is my understanding IIRC
> that on a 32bit install you are limited to 2gb maximum of memory that can be
> used by a single process. The limitations I talk about here are BIOS/arch
> limited where a certain amount of memory is reserved for things like your
> video card, interrupts ... this has to be mapped below 4gb so a hole in the
> memory has to be there for it to be used, like back in the DOS days where you
> had the 15mb-16mb memory hole option in the BIOS. I believe that was just
> video related though if my memory serves me but the principle is the same the
> space needs to be reserved on 32bit thus lowers the total ram available on
> 64bit it is not needed to be reserved so you get all the memory.

Modern 32 bit processors and chipsets map around those limitations.

For many years there have been 32-bit server motherboards that
accept and use (in both Linux and Windows) up to 64GB RAM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
http://kerneltrap.org/node/2450

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

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=lpQI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Wakko Warner on Tue, 2007-10-23 20:00.

Ron Johnson wrote:
> Modern 32 bit processors and chipsets map around those limitations.
>
> For many years there have been 32-bit server motherboards that
> accept and use (in both Linux and Windows) up to 64GB RAM.

I have a SuperMicro X7DA3+ board with 4gb of memory installed. Here's what
I see:
# uname -a
Linux vegeta 2.6.20-pae #4 SMP PREEMPT Wed Apr 4 18:10:06 EDT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux
# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 4150372 709824 3440548 0 143332 247752
-/+ buffers/cache: 318740 3831632
Swap: 0 0 0
#

I have not compiled my kernel for 64-bit yet. Given this I may not. I
really don't want to change my userland to 64-bit right now.

--
Lab tests show that use of micro$oft causes cancer in lab animals
Got Gas???

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by pgega on Wed, 2007-10-24 12:00.

I just installed AMD64 Debian, put 4th RAM stick, but new sysytem does
not see the memory, even if I set mem=3900M in grub.

I completly do not know what to do now.

On Oct 24, 1:20 am, Wakko Warner wrote:
> Ron Johnson wrote:
> > Modern 32 bit processors and chipsets map around those limitations.
>
> > For many years there have been 32-bit server motherboards that
> > accept and use (in both Linux and Windows) up to 64GB RAM.
>
> I have a SuperMicro X7DA3+ board with 4gb of memory installed. Here's what
> I see:
> # uname -a
> Linux vegeta 2.6.20-pae #4 SMP PREEMPT Wed Apr 4 18:10:06 EDT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux
> # free
> total used free shared buffers cached
> Mem: 4150372 709824 3440548 0 143332 247752
> -/+ buffers/cache: 318740 3831632
> Swap: 0 0 0
> #
>
> I have not compiled my kernel for 64-bit yet. Given this I may not. I
> really don't want to change my userland to 64-bit right now.
>
> --
> Lab tests show that use of micro$oft causes cancer in lab animals
> Got Gas???
>
> --

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Wakko Warner on Wed, 2007-10-24 17:00.

pgega wrote:

Please do not top post.

> I just installed AMD64 Debian, put 4th RAM stick, but new sysytem does
> not see the memory, even if I set mem=3900M in grub.
>
> I completly do not know what to do now.

I'm using i386 debian with a custom kernel. I'm running on xeon dual core
processors. I did not set mem= on anything, but I do have the kernel
compiled for 64gb ram. Using 2.6.23 and I notice no slowdowns having 4gb of
ram.

> On Oct 24, 1:20 am, Wakko Warner wrote:
> > Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > Modern 32 bit processors and chipsets map around those limitations.
> >
> > > For many years there have been 32-bit server motherboards that
> > > accept and use (in both Linux and Windows) up to 64GB RAM.
> >
> > I have a SuperMicro X7DA3+ board with 4gb of memory installed. Here's what
> > I see:
> > # uname -a
> > Linux vegeta 2.6.20-pae #4 SMP PREEMPT Wed Apr 4 18:10:06 EDT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux
> > # free
> > total used free shared buffers cached
> > Mem: 4150372 709824 3440548 0 143332 247752
> > -/+ buffers/cache: 318740 3831632
> > Swap: 0 0 0
> > #
> >
> > I have not compiled my kernel for 64-bit yet. Given this I may not. I
> > really don't want to change my userland to 64-bit right now.
> >
> > --
> > Lab tests show that use of micro$oft causes cancer in lab animals
> > Got Gas???
> >
> > --
> > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to
> > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
>
>
> --

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by pietia on Thu, 2007-10-25 10:00.

Wakko Warner pisze:

> pgega wrote:
>
> Please do not top post.
>
>
>> I just installed AMD64 Debian, put 4th RAM stick, but new sysytem does
>> not see the memory, even if I set mem=3900M in grub.
>>
>> I completly do not know what to do now.
>>
>
> I'm using i386 debian with a custom kernel. I'm running on xeon dual core
> processors. I did not set mem= on anything, but I do have the kernel
> compiled for 64gb ram. Using 2.6.23 and I notice no slowdowns having 4gb of
> ram.
>

hi
Maybe it's issue of ram sticks - if one alone works
and there are problems with dual channel ?

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Pasi Oja-Nisula on Thu, 2007-10-25 16:00.

On Wed, Oct 24, 2007 at 04:04:59PM -0000, pgega wrote:
> I just installed AMD64 Debian, put 4th RAM stick, but new sysytem does
> not see the memory, even if I set mem=3900M in grub.

Well, the mem-parameter is mainly used in limiting the available memory,
not the other way round. I would use that after you see all the
memory, but the system is still slow.

I don't think that you have mentioned your graphics card yet.
As someone mentioned, at least in 32 bit world that memory is
taken away from memory under 4GB. That might not be your problem,
but something related to bios might very well be. I would concentrate the
effort to this before going on with the operating system. It might
be helpful to also search Windows users experiences with 4GB on
that motherboard.

I was going to say that while you have tested all ram modules
separately, maybe the fourth ram socket on motherboard is faulty.
But I understand that the problem (slow boot etc) occurs only
when the fourth socket is occupied, but the bios reports the
same amount of available memory?

Pasi

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Tim DeWall on Tue, 2007-10-23 20:00.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Johnson"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: 1GB RAM is missing.

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 10/23/07 18:00, Stephen Cormier wrote:
>> On October 23, 2007 05:32:55 pm Ron Johnson wrote:
>>> On 10/23/07 14:16, Stephen Cormier wrote:
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>> You are going to have to accept that you are never going to get all 4gb
>>>> running a 32bit install due to the limitations of using 32bit where
>>>> things
>>> At the pid level, or at the OS level?
>>
>> I take it by pid you mean a process if so then it is my understanding
>> IIRC
>> that on a 32bit install you are limited to 2gb maximum of memory that can
>> be
>> used by a single process. The limitations I talk about here are BIOS/arch
>> limited where a certain amount of memory is reserved for things like your
>> video card, interrupts ... this has to be mapped below 4gb so a hole in
>> the
>> memory has to be there for it to be used, like back in the DOS days where
>> you
>> had the 15mb-16mb memory hole option in the BIOS. I believe that was just
>> video related though if my memory serves me but the principle is the same
>> the
>> space needs to be reserved on 32bit thus lowers the total ram available
>> on
>> 64bit it is not needed to be reserved so you get all the memory.
>
> Modern 32 bit processors and chipsets map around those limitations.
>
> For many years there have been 32-bit server motherboards that
> accept and use (in both Linux and Windows) up to 64GB RAM.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
> http://kerneltrap.org/node/2450
>
> - --
> Ron Johnson, Jr.
> Jefferson LA USA
>
> Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
> Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFHHn+NS9HxQb37XmcRAkTYAKDqvraUagQsTic3zAh5Jxnmv1JcBgCgmIZp
> Xx80pVwwfwdYmW9Hn4hmKhY=
> =lpQI
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>
> --

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Ron Johnson on Tue, 2007-10-23 21:00.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 10/23/07 19:51, Tim DeWall wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Johnson"
> To:
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 6:11 PM
> Subject: Re: 1GB RAM is missing.
>
>
> On 10/23/07 18:00, Stephen Cormier wrote:
>>>> On October 23, 2007 05:32:55 pm Ron Johnson wrote:
>>>>> On 10/23/07 14:16, Stephen Cormier wrote:
>>>>> [snip]
>>>>>
>>>>>> You are going to have to accept that you are never going to get all
>>>>>> 4gb
>>>>>> running a 32bit install due to the limitations of using 32bit where
>>>>>> things
>>>>> At the pid level, or at the OS level?
>>>>
[snip]
>>>> 64bit it is not needed to be reserved so you get all the memory.
>
> Modern 32 bit processors and chipsets map around those limitations.
>
> For many years there have been 32-bit server motherboards that
> accept and use (in both Linux and Windows) up to 64GB RAM.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
> http://kerneltrap.org/node/2450

Tim, did you forget to write something?

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

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We keep getting these from you

Submitted by Douglas Tutty on Tue, 2007-10-23 23:00.

Hi Tim,

The last little while today, copies of mail to debian-user keeps coming
back unchanged from you.

Doug.

On Tue, Oct 23, 2007 at 07:51:11PM -0500, Tim DeWall wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ron Johnson"
> To:
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 6:11 PM
> Subject: Re: 1GB RAM is missing.
>
>
> >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >Hash: SHA1
> >
> >On 10/23/07 18:00, Stephen Cormier wrote:
> >>On October 23, 2007 05:32:55 pm Ron Johnson wrote:
> >>>On 10/23/07 14:16, Stephen Cormier wrote:
> >>>[snip]
> >>>
> >>>>You are going to have to accept that you are never going to get all 4gb
> >>>>running a 32bit install due to the limitations of using 32bit where
> >>>>things
> >>>At the pid level, or at the OS level?
> >>
> >>I take it by pid you mean a process if so then it is my understanding
> >>IIRC
> >>that on a 32bit install you are limited to 2gb maximum of memory that can
> >>be
> >>used by a single process. The limitations I talk about here are BIOS/arch
> >>limited where a certain amount of memory is reserved for things like your
> >>video card, interrupts ... this has to be mapped below 4gb so a hole in
> >>the
> >>memory has to be there for it to be used, like back in the DOS days where
> >>you
> >>had the 15mb-16mb memory hole option in the BIOS. I believe that was just
> >>video related though if my memory serves me but the principle is the same
> >>the
> >>space needs to be reserved on 32bit thus lowers the total ram available
> >>on
> >>64bit it is not needed to be reserved so you get all the memory.
> >
> >Modern 32 bit processors and chipsets map around those limitations.
> >
> >For many years there have been 32-bit server motherboards that
> >accept and use (in both Linux and Windows) up to 64GB RAM.
> >
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
> >http://kerneltrap.org/node/2450
> >
> >- --
> >Ron Johnson, Jr.
> >Jefferson LA USA
> >
> >Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
> >Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!
> >
> >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
> >
> >iD8DBQFHHn+NS9HxQb37XmcRAkTYAKDqvraUagQsTic3zAh5Jxnmv1JcBgCgmIZp
> >Xx80pVwwfwdYmW9Hn4hmKhY=
> >=lpQI
> >-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >
> >
> >--

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by Owen Townend on Wed, 2007-10-31 23:00.

On Tue, 2007-10-23 at 05:34 -0700, pgega wrote:
> On Oct 22, 10:00 pm, Pasi Oja-Nisula wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 22, 2007 at 11:29:37AM -0000, pgega wrote:
> > > Pasi: what was the RAM seend by BIOS , when I use 4 GiB ,bios sees
> > > only 3052 GiB (But the MSI board can hadle up to 8 GiB)
> >
> > > If I would rise RAM number with GRUB (like you, 3900GiB), could I get
> > > more then seen by bios (3052 GiB) ?
> >
> > In my case bios reports 3903 MB. Anyway, the usable limit in my machine
> > is less than what the bios reports.
> >
> > One instruction I have heard about these problems was to make sure
> > that bios setting "memory remap" is on. Whatever that is, my bios
> > doesn't have that.
> >
> > Pasi
> >
> > --
> > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to
> > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
> OK, I will check this option,
>
> My bios reports two values:
> Physical memory : 4G
> and Usage memory 3G
>
> And, god sake, I do not know how to enable more ram, in other hand
> board supports up to 8G, none of RAM sticks is broken.
>
Hey,
The best explanation of the 3-4GB RAM issue is this page:
http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm "Ask Dan: What's with the 3Gb memory barrier?"
The author is a writer for a tech mag here in Oz called Atomic.

Summary:
Without some kind of memory remap option you will not get all 4GB
because your computer maps other devices into the ram address space. For
example the biggest culprit is video card memory. If you have a 512MB
card, this takes 512MB of the address space. If you have a dual card
768MB SLI rig then this takes 1.5GB from your space etc, etc.

cheers,
Owen.

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by pgega on Sun, 2007-10-21 19:00.

OK, I googled for some k7 - related issues, what about k8 (I am asking
because amd 64 is k8) ?

Kind regards,
Pawel Gega

1GB RAM is missing.

Submitted by warrior24 on Mon, 2007-10-22 16:09.

Try burning a live cd of Ubuntu 64 I have a rig running 8 gb of that same brand of ram and it reads it all. I don't know if the 32 bit version would read 8gb but I know that the 64 does. Do this just to see if it reads it.

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We keep getting these from you

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