RAM shows less

[Bill Davidsen]

Jatin K wrote:
> On Monday 10 May 2010 08:29 PM, Bill Davidsen wrote:
>> Jatin K wrote:
>>    
>>> Dear All
>>>
>>> I've a new Dell Inspiton 1564 laptop with 1GB graphics card and 4GB DDR3
>>> RAM, FC 12 64bit installed on it , but in system information tab it
>>> shows 3.7GB usable RAM. My Question is "what about the remaining RAM ??"
>>> is it shared with graphics card ? then what is the meaning of dedicated
>>> RAM of my graphics card ( if graphics card shares my installed ram module )
>>>
>>> any idea ??
>>>
>>>      
>> Look at the start of /var/log/messages, /proc/mtrr, etc. See if your CPU has PAT
>> capability, etc.
>>
>>    
> Thnx Bill
> 
> My processor is Intel i5 430 2.27Ghz  ( turbo boost up to 2.53Ghz)
> 
> and following is the output of  cat /proc/mtrr
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> reg00: base=0x0ffe00000 ( 4094MB), size=    2MB, count=1: write-protect
> reg01: base=0x000000000 (    0MB), size= 2048MB, count=1: write-back
> reg02: base=0x080000000 ( 2048MB), size= 1024MB, count=1: write-back
> reg03: base=0x100000000 ( 4096MB), size= 1024MB, count=1: write-back
> reg04: base=0x138000000 ( 4992MB), size=  128MB, count=1: uncachable
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> can you have a look at it ..?    is it explaining  something ?????
> 
It may explain, note that you have 3GB starting at zero, a hole, and 1GB 
starting at 4GB. I'm surprised that the system did that well considering you 
have 2x2GB DIMMs.

There are two more things you can look at, /proc/meminfo will show what the 
system views as usable memory, and the output of dmidecode will show tons of 
stuff, but there will be one info block per DIMM which shows information on just 
that DIMM. I suspect you are getting a few MB of RAM shared for video, or 
something like that. The information in /var/log/messages will give more detail 
about how the memory is being allocated, but it's unlikely to lead to recovering 
more useful space.

At least you have learned a lot about looking at your system, score one more for 
"things I learned while looking for something else."

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot