[SOLVED] Missing memory?

JamesGT · 03-28-2020, 01:36 PM

I am using an older AMD FM1 Llano system. It has 16 GB of ram in the system but when I boot up and check the amount of memory, I have only 11.1GB available.

The integrated graphics is taking up 512mb, so about 12GB when that is taken into account. WHere is the other 4GB?

Checking the system, everything says 11.1GB total, but if I run dmidecode -t 17 I see all 4 memory modules totaling 16GB.

I am running Slackware Live with KDE Plasma installed on the HD.

Checking the BIOS, it shows all 16GB as well. Where else can I check memory?

James

upnort · 03-28-2020, 01:40 PM

What do free -h and cat /proc/meminfo report?

JamesGT · 03-28-2020, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by upnort

What do free -h and cat /proc/meminfo report?

Code:

bash-5.0# free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           11Gi       1.8Gi       7.6Gi       181Mi       1.6Gi       8.6Gi
Swap:            0B          0B          0B

Code:

bash-5.0# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:       11679744 kB
MemFree:         7929800 kB
MemAvailable:    8979708 kB
Buffers:            8468 kB
Cached:          1541108 kB
SwapCached:            0 kB
Active:          2042936 kB
Inactive:        1081116 kB
Active(anon):    1581764 kB
Inactive(anon):   182516 kB
Active(file):     461172 kB
Inactive(file):   898600 kB
Unevictable:          32 kB
Mlocked:              32 kB
SwapTotal:             0 kB
SwapFree:              0 kB
Dirty:              6236 kB
Writeback:             0 kB
AnonPages:       1574544 kB
Mapped:           549820 kB
Shmem:            189804 kB
Slab:             264428 kB
SReclaimable:     220384 kB
SUnreclaim:        44044 kB
KernelStack:        9392 kB
PageTables:        39352 kB
NFS_Unstable:          0 kB
Bounce:                0 kB
WritebackTmp:          0 kB
CommitLimit:     5839872 kB
Committed_AS:    6716024 kB
VmallocTotal:   34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed:           0 kB
VmallocChunk:          0 kB
Percpu:              896 kB
HardwareCorrupted:     0 kB
AnonHugePages:         0 kB
ShmemHugePages:        0 kB
ShmemPmdMapped:        0 kB
CmaTotal:              0 kB
CmaFree:               0 kB
DirectMap4k:      445000 kB
DirectMap2M:     7327744 kB
DirectMap1G:     5242880 kB

Code:

bash-5.0# dmidecode -t 17  
# dmidecode 3.2
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.7 present.

Handle 0x0006, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x0004
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4096 MB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: A1_DIMM0
        Bank Locator: A1_BANK0
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Synchronous
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: Undefined       
        Serial Number: 00000000  
        Asset Tag: A1_AssetTagNum0
        Part Number: 991770 (996770)   
        Rank: 1
        Configured Memory Speed: 667 MT/s

Handle 0x0008, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x0004
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4096 MB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: A1_DIMM1
        Bank Locator: A1_BANK1
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Synchronous
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: Undefined       
        Serial Number: 00000000  
        Asset Tag: A1_AssetTagNum1
        Part Number: 991770 (996770)   
        Rank: 1
        Configured Memory Speed: 667 MT/s

Handle 0x000A, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x0004
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4096 MB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: A1_DIMM2
        Bank Locator: A1_BANK2
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Synchronous
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: Undefined       
        Serial Number: 00000000  
        Asset Tag: A1_AssetTagNum2
        Part Number:                   
        Rank: 2
        Configured Memory Speed: 667 MT/s

Handle 0x000C, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x0004
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4096 MB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: A1_DIMM3
        Bank Locator: A1_BANK3
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Synchronous
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: Undefined       
        Serial Number: 00000000  
        Asset Tag: A1_AssetTagNum3
        Part Number:                   
        Rank: 2
        Configured Memory Speed: 667 MT/s

Alien Bob · 03-28-2020, 03:06 PM

Did you purposefully limit the usable memory to 11 GB and forgot? Check whether your (e)lilo.conf or grub.conf file has a "mem=" boot parameter specifying a value of 11 GB.

JamesGT · 03-28-2020, 03:13 PM

Found the issue.

I tried booting another version of Slackware Live from a USB drive and it gave me the same memory. Doing a search, someone had the same problem with another operating system. They saw only 12gb of 16gb. The solution was to slow the memory down. I turned the memory speed down from 1333MHz to 1066MHz and now I have all 16GB of ram.

"I bet your machine got nothing wrong but, despite the manufacturer's claims, it's northbridge simply cannot control that much RAM that fast, so it skips part of it. When you set the RAM a little less fast, however, then it's able to cope with all of it. "

Bingo.