SOLVED: memory less reported

[rjnlinux]

My Linux server is having the following issue

We have two servers

Server A
=========
The server was having 2 sticks of 1 GB Ram = tot 2 GB
we have added 2 more sticks of 2 GB each = tot 6 GB

Funny thing - but After install when we started the machine it did detect the total 6 GB Ram so it seems that the BIOS was able to recognize the 6 GB.


I ran the following commands
cat /etc/SuSE-release


SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 (i586)
VERSION = 9
PATCHLEVEL = 3



cat /proc/meminfo|grep Mem

MemTotal: 3630956 kB
MemFree: 2204956 kB


I expect to see total 6 GB

On Second server
================
We did the same on another server
here we increased from 6GB to 10 GB and the server was able to detect the 10 GB

cat /etc/SuSE-release
SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 (i586)
VERSION = 9
PATCHLEVEL = 3


cat /proc/meminfo|grep Mem

MemTotal: 10324860 kB
MemFree: 1502784 kB



The issue is being faced on the first server

Both servers are the same hardware and have 6 slots each capable of handling 2 GB RAM


Please assist

[saikee]

Is it possible that the Server A runs a 32-bit system while the other one has a 64-bit system?

[rjnlinux]

Story is as follows

The Suse Enterprise Linux 9 Operating system was installed by
some one else.

I am a newbie to Linux

The server was having 2 GB RAM
uname -r gives output as 2.6.5-7.244-smp

we added more ram to the server to upgrade it to 6 GB
the server can see

cat /proc/meminfo|grep Mem
MemTotal: 3630956 kB

I have a SUSE Enterprise SP3 cd with the following two
rpm's

kernel-bigsmp-2.6.5-7.244.i586.rpm
kernel-smp-2.6.5-7.244.i586.rpm



a) How do I install the new kernel - do i rpm -ivh kernel-bigsmp-2.6.5-7.244.i586.rpm
b) what is the impact of installing a new kernel -
will I have to rebuild any jar files or compile any applications ?

[saikee]

If you are running a 32-bit system the limit of ram it can address, inclusive of those in the video card, is 4Gb.

You are only able to use more than 4Gb in a 64-bit operating system.

[retsaw]

You can use more than 4GB with a 32-bit kernel so long as it is compiled with the right options, presumably that is what the bigsmp kernel is.

rjnlinux, that command should install the kernel, you may need to update the bootloader to boot from that kernel though (but maybe it will be done automatically). Changing the kernel shouldn't impact the applications, so long as you have no custom kernel modules for the old kernel there should be no problems switching to the bigsmp kernel.

[cybertron]

a) How do I install the new kernel - do i rpm -ivh kernel-bigsmp-2.6.5-7.244.i586.rpm

One comment on this: it will probably be easier to install this through YaST rather than directly with RPM. There should be an option in YaST to install software (I don't know exactly what it would be called in Suse 9), and if you search in there for kernel-bigsmp you should find what you're looking for.

As retsaw said, it shouldn't cause any problems. There's a bit of a performance hit for using >4GB in a 32-bit system, but I doubt you'll notice.

[rjnlinux]

These are my steps

a) Insert cd SLES9 SP3 disk 1 in cd drive
b) YAST2 - install software choose kernel - select bigsmp kernel and accept
c) YAST2 handles all the work required and requests for reboot
d) Reboot confirms that memory is now reported correctly at approx 6 GB


cat /proc/meminfo|grep Mem
MemTotal: 6163452 kB
MemFree: 4925760 kB

checked /boot
and found

initrd -> initrd-2.6.5-7.244-bigsmp



Thanks a lot to all users who contributed