Notebook - 64 bit - 4GB - but see only 2GB

**Cseszkum** · December 23rd, 2012

Hello,
I'm a new linux user. I have an Acer Aspire E1-571 notebook. It has 4GB RAM. I installed Xubuntu 12.10 (64 bit), but it sees only 2GB ram instead of 4GB.

Bios sees all 4GB. (It's a very pure bios, I could set time, boot order and security. No advanced setting page.)

Some info:
> lsb_release -a

Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.10
Release: 12.10
Codename: quantal

> uname -a

Linux VarpAcer 3.5.0-21-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 11 18:51:59 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

> sudo lshw -short

H/W path Device Class Description
================================================== ====
system Aspire E1-571 (Type1Sku0)
/0 bus EA50_HC_CR
/0/0 memory 128KiB BIOS
/0/10 memory 4GiB System Memory
/0/10/0 memory [empty]
/0/10/1 memory [empty]
/0/10/2 memory 4GiB DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 666 MHz (1,5 ns)
/0/10/3 memory [empty]
/0/20 processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3110M CPU @ 2.40GHz
/0/20/22 memory 32KiB L1 cache
/0/20/23 memory 256KiB L2 cache
/0/20/24 memory 3MiB L3 cache
/0/21 memory 32KiB L1 cache
/0/100 bridge 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller
/0/100/2 display 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller
/0/100/16 communication 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1
/0/100/1a bus 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2
/0/100/1b multimedia 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller
/0/100/1c bridge 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1
/0/100/1c/0 eth0 network NetLink BCM57785 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe
/0/100/1c/0.1 generic NetXtreme BCM57765 Memory Card Reader
/0/100/1c/0.2 generic Broadcom Corporation
/0/100/1c/0.3 generic Broadcom Corporation
/0/100/1c.1 bridge 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2
/0/100/1c.1/0 eth1 network BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller
/0/100/1d bus 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1
/0/100/1f bridge HM77 Express Chipset LPC Controller
/0/100/1f.2 storage 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
/0/100/1f.3 bus 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller
/0/1 scsi0 storage
/0/1/0.0.0 /dev/sda disk 500GB Hitachi HTS54505
/0/1/0.0.0/1 /dev/sda1 volume 461GiB EXT4 volume
/0/1/0.0.0/2 /dev/sda2 volume 3933MiB Extended partition
/0/1/0.0.0/2/5 /dev/sda5 volume 3933MiB Linux swap / Solaris partition
/0/2 scsi2 storage
/0/2/0.0.0 /dev/cdrom disk DVD-RW DVRTD11RS

> cat /proc/meminfo

MemTotal: 1919616 kB
MemFree: 132696 kB
Buffers: 29828 kB
Cached: 866512 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 595208 kB
Inactive: 1030496 kB
Active(anon): 366948 kB
Inactive(anon): 451072 kB
Active(file): 228260 kB
Inactive(file): 579424 kB
Unevictable: 31264 kB
Mlocked: 31264 kB
SwapTotal: 4027388 kB
SwapFree: 4027068 kB
Dirty: 18016 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 760668 kB
Mapped: 119408 kB
Shmem: 82804 kB
Slab: 66920 kB
SReclaimable: 43680 kB
SUnreclaim: 23240 kB
KernelStack: 3144 kB
PageTables: 19268 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 4987196 kB
Committed_AS: 2237964 kB
VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed: 546748 kB
VmallocChunk: 34359189687 kB
HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB
AnonHugePages: 0 kB
HugePages_Total: 0
HugePages_Free: 0
HugePages_Rsvd: 0
HugePages_Surp: 0
Hugepagesize: 2048 kB
DirectMap4k: 53248 kB
DirectMap2M: 1912832 kB

> free -m

total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1874 1771 103 0 29 870
-/+ buffers/cache: 871 1002
Swap: 3932 0 3932

> sudo fwts memmapdump -

Results generated by fwts: Version V0.26.00 (Wed Sep 19 15:55:55 CST 2012).

Some of this work - Copyright (c) 1999 - 2010, Intel Corp. All rights reserved.
Some of this work - Copyright (c) 2010 - 2012, Canonical.

This test run on 20/12/12 at 13:54:33 on host Linux VarpAcer 3.5.0-21-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec
11 18:51:59 UTC 2012 x86_64.

Running tests: memmapdump.

Dump system memory map.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Test 1 of 1: Dump system memory map.
Memory Map Layout
-----------------
0000000000000000 - 000000000009d7ff (System RAM)
000000000009d800 - 000000000009ffff (reserved)
00000000000e0000 - 00000000000fffff (reserved)
0000000000100000 - 000000001fffffff (System RAM)
0000000020000000 - 00000000201fffff (reserved)
0000000020200000 - 0000000040003fff (System RAM)
0000000040004000 - 0000000040004fff (reserved)
0000000040005000 - 00000000a6abefff (System RAM)
00000000a6abf000 - 00000000a6ebefff (reserved)
00000000a6ebf000 - 00000000a6fbefff (ACPI Non-volatile Storage)
00000000a6fbf000 - 00000000a6ffefff (ACPI Non-volatile Storage)
00000000a6fff000 - 00000000a6ffffff (System RAM)
00000000a7000000 - 00000000af9fffff (reserved)
00000000e0000000 - 00000000efffffff (reserved)
00000000feb00000 - 00000000feb03fff (reserved)
00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec00fff (reserved)
00000000fed10000 - 00000000fed19fff (reserved)
00000000fed1c000 - 00000000fed1ffff (reserved)
00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee00fff (reserved)
00000000ffc80000 - 00000000ffffffff (reserved)
0000000100000000 - 000000014f5fffff (System RAM)

> sudo lshw -C memory

*-firmware
description: BIOS
vendor: Acer
physical id: 0
version: V1.09
date: 07/30/2012
size: 128KiB
capacity: 3520KiB
capabilities: pci upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect edd int13floppynec int13floppytoshiba int13floppy360 int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int9keyboard int10video acpi usb biosbootspecification uefi
*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: 10
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 4GiB
*-bank:0
description: [empty]
product: Empty
vendor: Empty
physical id: 0
serial: Empty
slot: DIMM0
*-bank:1
description: [empty]
product: Empty
vendor: Empty
physical id: 1
serial: Empty
slot: DIMM1
*-bank:2
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 666 MHz (1,5 ns)
product: NT4GC64B8HG0NS-CG
vendor: Nanya Technology
physical id: 2
serial: 36172C02
slot: DIMM1
size: 4GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 666MHz (1.5ns)
*-bank:3
description: [empty]
product: Empty
vendor: Empty
physical id: 3
serial: Empty
slot: DIMM3
*-cache:0
description: L1 cache
physical id: 22
slot: L1 Cache
size: 32KiB
capacity: 32KiB
capabilities: internal write-through instruction
*-cache:1
description: L2 cache
physical id: 23
slot: L2 Cache
size: 256KiB
capacity: 256KiB
capabilities: internal write-through unified
*-cache:2
description: L3 cache
physical id: 24
slot: L3 Cache
size: 3MiB
capacity: 3MiB
capabilities: internal write-back unified
*-cache
description: L1 cache
physical id: 21
slot: L1 Cache
size: 32KiB
capacity: 32KiB
capabilities: internal write-through data

Somebody has any idea?
...or I missed something?

**sudodus** · December 23rd, 2012

Welcome to the Ubuntu Forums

What kernel type is it? pae or non-pae. I think the standard kernel of Xubuntu is non-pae, which is necessary for several old cpus, for example for my old IBM Thinkpad T41. But you need pae to use more than 2 GB of RAM, so I suggest that you check this issue and get a pae version, if this is the case.
...
Edit: You did install 64-bit version and it works, then it is not the pae issue, both the cpu and the kernel are far above that problem.

**sudodus** · December 23rd, 2012

Instead let us discuss along another line:

Is it the same problem, when you run a live session booted from the Xubuntu install CD/DVD/USB drive?

What about Xubuntu 12.04 LTS? Here you need to select the 64-bit version or generic-pae (otherwise you might run into the the non-pae version, which cannot use more than 2GB of RAM).

12.04 lasts until April 2015, and can be expected to be very stable, so it is also a good choice.

**Cseszkum** · December 23rd, 2012

Thx for reply sudodus!

Good ideas! I try to live CD, and it sees full of ram. Strange... but it has a previous kernel...

And you wrote the LTS supported ubuntu. I wanted to install that, but it seems I failed when I downloaded it...

I changed to LTS and it sees full of ram.
Thx for this christmas gift!

All the best!