[arch-general] Can't see all my memory

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Fri, 2012-09-21 at 16:17 +0530, Aurko Roy wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 4:16 PM, Roel Deckers <r.deckers.93 at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
> > Does the missing memory show up in other OSs?
> > It can be faulty ram if it doesn't show up in any OS, recently had that
> > problem.
> >
> > On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 12:37 PM, Guillermo Leira <gleira at gleira.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Hello!
> > >
> > > I've installed an x86_64 Arch on a PC with 8 GB, but it seems to be
> > seeing
> > > just four. What have I done wrong?
> > >
> > > Bios sees 4 x 2GB Modules and reports 8 GB, but top or free report only 4
> > > GB.
> > >
> > > Best Regards
> > >
> > > Guillermo Leira
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> 
> You could try running memtest86+ on boot and see if it detects the
> additional memory.

I never heard that anybody solved this issue, but I read that many
people have this issue too.

On my computer there are only 3 GB + 768 MB of 4 MB available. The
graphics has got it's own framebuffer, 256 MB, but IIRC I once have seen
that the framebuffer is 512 MB. I guess I can see it running NVIDIA
settings, but at the moment I can't run it, because I'm using the nv
driver. IIRC memtest86+ did always show the complete memory on my
machine. I don't care, since it doesn't make a difference if I got 4GB
or 3.8GB. However, I read often about this 8GB issue, for different
distros. And it where definitive threads about 64-bit architecture, not
about 32-bit and PAE issues.

Regards,
Ralf