/proc/meminfo

vkmgeek · 03-17-2008, 09:48 AM

Hi all,
I have 8GB RAM on my machine, but when I do cat /proc/meminfo, it shows only 512MB.
Anybody is having any idea? why is it so ?

I am running RHEL4u4 32 bit OS and having kernel 2.6.9-42.ELsmp

[root@amd-245 ~]# cat /etc/issue
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 4)
Kernel \r on an \m

[root@amd-245 ~]# uname -a
Linux amd-245 2.6.9-42.ELsmp #1 SMP Wed Jul 12 23:27:17 EDT 2006 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
[root@amd-245 ~]#

Thanks in advance

trickykid · 03-17-2008, 10:10 AM

Can you give the output of /proc/meminfo?

Is your system recognizing 8GB of RAM at bootup in the BIOS?

What does top or free provide when you run those commands?

H_TeXMeX_H · 03-17-2008, 12:21 PM

I heard that no Red Hat EL kernel has hugemem enabled, this means the most you will get is 4 GB of usable RAM. I could be wrong, but I don't know where to check either.

trickykid · 03-17-2008, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H

I heard that no Red Hat EL kernel has hugemem enabled, this means the most you will get is 4 GB of usable RAM. I could be wrong, but I don't know where to check either.

But clearly this is not the issue since it's only reporting 512MB of memory. I'm guessing either there's hardware issue or they're possibly reading the output wrong possibly.

vkmgeek · 03-19-2008, 09:25 AM

ok !!
I got it !!
I was giving Kernel parameters as mem=512M , mistakenly...
Anyway, i hav got a new doubt then.... I removed the option now... But, will I be able to use all 8G RAM or I ll be allowed to use only 4G....

Is it like that if I want to use all 8G RAM then I hv to boot hugemem Kernel ?

trickykid · 03-19-2008, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vkmgeek

ok !!
I got it !!
I was giving Kernel parameters as mem=512M , mistakenly...
Anyway, i hav got a new doubt then.... I removed the option now... But, will I be able to use all 8G RAM or I ll be allowed to use only 4G....

Is it like that if I want to use all 8G RAM then I hv to boot hugemem Kernel ?

Well, after removing the kernel parameter and you rebooted, how much memory is being detected? If only 4GB, then recompile or install a hugemem kernel to utilize all of your memory.

vkmgeek · 03-20-2008, 12:12 AM

No
I was able to see 8G RAM... So, no prob...
But then still i dont understand why hugemem kernel is there ?