Geoff Reidy wrote:
Geoffandy wrote:Geoff Reidy wrote:Marko Randjelovic wrote:andy wrote:Thanks Geoff. I had also read that during the course of my earlier research on this issue. But ... :~$ uname -r 2.6.18-3-686 Viola! 686 and still no 1GB mem recognised, only 3/4s (776400KB) of it, as seen below: :~$ free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 776400 732580 43820 0 36980 317528 -/+ buffers/cache: 378072 398328 Swap: 2931852 92 2931760 It would appear that I'm looking at either just accepting this fact or will have to recompile my kernel, which I am a tad phobic about to be frank.Are you sure you have 1GB? What does BIOS report when you restart your computer?You can also install the dmidecode package and do something like this as root: # dmidecode |grep 'Installed Size' |grep MB Which gives me: Installed Size: 256 MB (Single-bank Connection) Installed Size: 256 MB (Single-bank Connection) Installed Size: 512 MB (Double-bank Connection)Geoff The relevant excerpt from the output of dmidecode is: Memory Device Array Handle: 0x0027 Error Information Handle: Not Provided Total Width: 64 bits Data Width: 64 bits Size: 1024 MB Form Factor: DIMM Set: None Locator: DIMM0 Bank Locator: BANK0 Type: DDR Type Detail: Synchronous Speed: Unknown Manufacturer: Manufacturer0 Serial Number: SerNum0 Asset Tag: AssetTagNum0 Part Number: PartNum0 Although the man page will identify as a bug that the info in dmidecode can be completely wrong (!), this does show that I have 1024MB of RAM - i.e. 1GB. So, somewhere betwixt BIOS and fired up Etch I have lost recognition for 250MB-odd of memory.Now you've got me, I've got a P4 with 1 GB at work running that kernel and it does see all the memory. I've had motherboards not see an extra memory stick but you've only got the one 1 GB stick? You could try booting a cd with memtest86 or knoppix or something to see if that finds it all, or see if there's a bios update for your motherboard that mentions some memory issues. Other than that I'm out of ideas at the moment. Thanks for your thoughts. On a note that might be related, I have just watched an *.avi video from the hard-drive using Totem and was drawing 100% CPU, with 42% of memory in cache. Perhaps this is normal ? My only strange experiences with Etch thus far are: * not having the full 1 GB stick recognised, * the heavy use of CPU, * the overflow into swap, and * the occasional hard freeze when burning DVDs after converting them from non-DVD formats Perhaps these issues are related? Could I have a bad stick of RAM? Is it software? Will the Knoppix and memtest86 CDs you mention help sort out which is which? Thanks for your thoughts. A |