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

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Fri, 2012-09-21 at 14:48 +0100, Kevin Chadwick wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> Yes on 64 bit systems you will see the maximum memory. On 32 bit you
> need a PAE enabled kernel to get any more than 4Gig. If you have less
> than 4Gig you may want to use the PAE kernel in any case because if you
> have a relatively modern cpu it will support hardware Non execute
> protection. On a non-PAE kernel you will see NX protection disabled or
> such in dmesg.

I'm using 64-bit architecture.
[spinymouse at archlinux ~]$ uname -a
Linux archlinux 3.4.4-rt14-1-rt #1 SMP PREEMPT RT Fri Jul 20 13:16:40
UTC 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux
[spinymouse at archlinux ~]$ hwinfo --memory
01: None 00.0: 10102 Main Memory                                
  [Created at memory.66]
  Unique ID: rdCR.CxwsZFjVASF
  Hardware Class: memory
  Model: "Main Memory"
  Memory Range: 0x00000000-0xf7b84fff (rw)
  Memory Size: 3 GB + 768 MB