Memory upgrade not detected

[cnestor]

I am running Fedora 14 64 bits on a Thinkpad 510:

2.6.35.6-45.fc14.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon Oct 18 23:57:44 UTC 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I installed 6 GB of ram. My bios is detecting the 6GB but my OS is only using 2.9GB.


cat /proc/meminfo:
MemTotal: 3013448 kB
MemFree: 64704 kB
Buffers: 10516 kB
Cached: 438716 kB
SwapCached: 127460 kB
Active: 2033756 kB

Top:
Mem: 3013448k total, 2951100k used, 62348k free, 11128k buffers
Swap: 5111804k total, 653136k used, 4458668k free, 437464k cached

The kernel is likely not detecting all the memory. Is there a workaround/patch available for this issue?

Thanks!

[ozjd]

As you are using the 64 bit kernel the memory should be recognised. It is usually a bios issue when it isn't detected but as you say you have checked that I'm not sure what to recommend. However I notice you are using an old kernel so would suggest you do a full update first, maybe some bug has been fixed. Long shot but worth updating anyway.

[CSchwangler]

Did you run memtest and if yes, what size is memtest reporting. If you didn't run it yet, I would strongly recommend to do so, since your RAM may not be functioning correctly.

[cnestor]

Thx for the answer.
I didn't run memtest. Haven't found a correct set of instructions how to do that. (Installed memtest64, ran memtest-setup then what ?)

I haven't done a kernel update yet. I thought Fedora 14 64bits out of the box would support 6GB. I previously ran Fedora 13 32 Bits with 4GB of ram without issue and that was much faster than my current 64bits, annoying.

---------- Post added at 07:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:18 PM ----------

updated kernel to latest:
2.6.35.10-74.fc14.x86_64 #1 SMP Thu Dec 23 16:04:50 UTC 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

memory problem is still present.

[unixrobot]

Hi,

can you please check whether you have built in your memory upgrade as suggested by Lenovo?

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-75886

and do you use the latest BIOS release and please post your dmesg?

[cnestor]

Finally got the bottom of it! I ran memtest and it could only recognize 2.9GB, with 2 x 2GB ram or one single 4GB ram. That pushed me to check the BIOS. I did a BIOS update and I have now full access to my 6GB or ram.

Thank you all.