BIOS Ram says 8gb, unraid says 4gb


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I'm wrapping up a mob/processor upgrade and am having an issue.  my BIOS reports the full 8gb of RAM that is installed but unraid is only seeing & using 4gb.  Since this isn't a new build and my old system was a 32bit system I'm wondering if there might be something in my config that might be limited unRaid. 

 

I do have two options on my boot menu and one is limited to 4gb but that is NOT the option that I'm running.

 

Anyone have any suggestions?

 

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I'm running Dynamix gui so I get slightly different info.

Info button says:

  Memory: 32768 MB (max. 4 GB)

but the dashboard reports:

  Memory size allocated 3291 MB

                        installed 8192 MB (max. 4 GB)

 

I also seem to be running around 80% memory utilization.

 

All this seems to suggest only 4gb is being used by unRaid.

 

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yup.  version 5.0.6

It really has a 4gb limit?  I thought I've seen lots of posts around here where people are talking about using more ram.  I've even seen posts talking about special tweeks to limit ram usage to 4gb in v5.x.

 

Have a really missed that limitation?

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As you're posting in the V5 forum i'll assume that's the version you're running.

 

V5 is 32bit so will only recognise 4gb of RAM, you'll need to upgrade to V6 to use the full 8.

 

SR

Not correct. Through the magic of PAE, 32 bit software can page across multiple 4GB segments. No single process can address more than 4GB at a time though.
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I'm wrapping up a mob/processor upgrade and am having an issue.  my BIOS reports the full 8gb of RAM that is installed but unraid is only seeing & using 4gb.  Since this isn't a new build and my old system was a 32bit system I'm wondering if there might be something in my config that might be limited unRaid. 

 

I do have two options on my boot menu and one is limited to 4gb but that is NOT the option that I'm running.

 

Anyone have any suggestions?

Look in your syslinux.cfg file and remove all instances of mem=4095M or similar from the append lines.
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I'm aware of PAE but that's beyond the scope of this conversation.

 

Keeping things simple, you'll need to upgrade to V6 to use 8gb as the 32bit kernel in V5 can't directly address more than 4gb.

 

SR

 

Wow, I'm completely surprised by this. The old v5 wiki even says that 4+ is recommended.

http://goo.gl/R8jWPp

 

It sure seems like my entire hardward upgrade to a 64bit processor was a waste  :o:P :'(

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OK, I did a bunch more searches and found more conflicting results so I thought I'd go right to Lime-Tech. 

 

Here is my question to Tom:

  Can unRaid 5.0.6 use RAM above 4gb?

Here is Tom's response:

  Yes unRaid-5 uses what’s called “PAE” kernel which has 64GB limit.

 

So it appears I have a hardware issue somewhere or an unraid config issue. 

 

Anyone else have any ideas?

 

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That didn't work.  Here is my syslinux.cfg

 

default menu.c32

menu title Lime Technology LLC

prompt 0

timeout 50

label unRAID OS

  menu default

  kernel bzimage

  append initrd=bzroot

label Memtest86+

  kernel memtest

 

 

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Have you checked your BIOS settings?  I have seen cases where PAE support (required on 32-bit systems for accessing RAM beyond 4GB) needed to be enabled.

 

I've been through the bios settings and can't find anything related to pae.  on the bios info page it shows 8gb install.

 

I've been trying to get a bios upgrade installed but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

 

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Have you checked your BIOS settings?  I have seen cases where PAE support (required on 32-bit systems for accessing RAM beyond 4GB) needed to be enabled.

 

I've been through the bios settings and can't find anything related to pae.  on the bios info page it shows 8gb install.

 

I've been trying to get a bios upgrade installed but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

One other possibility is incompatible RAM with your motherboard.

 

I've got a motherboard (GA-F2A55M-HD2) that while it recognizes (and tests) a particular set of DDR3 that I have (8 Gig), every single OS (arch, windows, ubuntu) I've ever installed using those sticks on that mobo will only recognize 4 gig.  Swapped the ram for a different set and everything is good to go. 

 

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I am having the same issue with Unraid 6. 12 GB of ram installed (and detected by BIOS) but seeing Max 4GB in UnRAID.

 

Dashboard Report:

Memory size allocated 12,018 MB

installed 12,288 MB (max. 4 GB)

 

Info Page Report:

M/B: ASUSTeK Computer INC. - P7P55D-E PRO

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz

HVM: Enabled

IOMMU: Disabled

Cache: 256 kB, 1024 kB, 8192 kB

Memory: 12288 MB (max. installable capacity 4 GB)

Network: eth0: 1000Mb/s - Full Duplex

Kernel: Linux 4.0.4-unRAID x86_64

OpenSSL: 1.0.1m

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The information on the System Info screen comes from different sources, some of them real and some of them from the manufacturer.  In particular, the Max installable memory comes from whatever the maker plugged into the field.  Makers put a low priority on its accuracy, often not even filling in the Manufacturer or board or model name, so it's hardly surprising they didn't get the installable memory figure right.  I've suggested elsewhere that all info from the DMI (sometimes called the SMBIOS) be starred with an asterisk, with an asterisk note at the bottom stating the info is from DMI and may not be reliable.  For more info, see this.  For more info from Wikipedia, see DMI and SMBIOS.

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The Max installable memory should not even be displayed if it comes from what the manufacturer put. That is never right. I imagine in most cases a larger size of ram has been introduced after the manufacturer set that number, or they just put the largest size they tested. In my few system builds that I tried larger amounts of ram than the manufacturer listed, it always worked just fine.

 

So to sum up, that field is almost never correct so why even use it? If something is incorrect more than 50% of the time, and this definitely is, I would not want to use or see it.

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The problem is, we don't actually know what the percentage of accuracy is.  It's the old problem of, we only hear from those where it's not working.  When the number is correct, the user hardly notices it, as it is just stating the obvious.  Only when it's wrong does it become noticeable.

 

Something that bonienl could do is check the number for validity.  If less than installed memory, leave it blank.  Although then, a user might complain why their system info is different from someone else's.  bonienl will figure it out!    ;)

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The problem is, we don't actually know what the percentage of accuracy is.  It's the old problem of, we only hear from those where it's not working.  When the number is correct, the user hardly notices it, as it is just stating the obvious.  Only when it's wrong does it become noticeable.

 

Something that bonienl could do is check the number for validity.  If less than installed memory, leave it blank.  Although then, a user might complain why their system info is different from someone else's.  bonienl will figure it out!    ;)

 

Right  ;D

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