Some physical memory not available

[Bill_185]

Hello,

I have a DL380 G2 server. I recently upgraded it from 2 Gig RAM to 4 Gig, and Windows sees only 3898908 Bytes of physical memory. During bootup the BIOS also shows the same amount. I did the math, and it seems about 256 Meg of RAM is disapearing. Does anyone know why?

Thank you for your help!

--Bill

[kamal_9]

Hi Bill
pls check for the bus speed in the bios .like 100or133 mhz or so
Are you sure both the memory is of same speed &type like registered ecc

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello Bill,
Please have a look at the following links:

Search for info on the boot.ini switches /PAE, /USERVA(:3030), and /3GB.

from MS : "...using only the /3GB switch allocates 1 GB to the kernel and 3 GB to the User-mode space."

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;268363
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316739
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;283037

Regards,

[Bill_185]

Thanks to all for your suggestions. The links were informative. However I still have the problem. I neglected to mention that Iâ m running Windows 2000 Server. Also, I am not missing an entire bank of RAM, I am â onlyâ missing 256 Meg, which is a fraction of one module. Also, during boot-up the BIOS also reports less than 4 Gig RAM, so I donâ t think itâ s a Windows issue at all.

I had a Fujitsu laptop once which used a Transmeta (RISC) processor, and 16 Meg of RAM was taken by the BIOS to load the CPUâ s Intel-emulation microcode, and that RAM never appeared in Windows. This is a known behavior with Transmeta processors, and I wonder if the BIOS in my DL380 G2 is also reserving some RAM for its own uses (diagnostics?). I havenâ t been able to find any mention of this in the docs.

Thanks again for your help and hopefully I will get som

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello Bill,

Don't forget the Hotplug Ressources Reservation which takes up some memory during post ( up to 40MB per hotplug slot used)

Regards,

[Bill_185]

Thanks very much, that must be it!

[Bill_185]

Sorry I may have spoken too soon. We have 2 other DL380â s and neither one is exhibiting this behavior - we are seeing the full RAM available in Windows. One has 2-Gig RAM and the other has 3-Gig, all using 512-Meg modules. Only the 4-Gig box is missing some RAM. It contains four 512-Meg modules plus the two 1-Gig modules which we just add

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello Bill,
Just a thought. Is all the RAM HP/COMPAQ?? If it is then could you please post the part nos??

Regards,

[Doug Wogan]

Maybe you have a memory stick going bad? Is it possible to grab one of the sticks of memory out of one of your other two G2's and systematically replace each one in your server reporting 3.8G? I would not use the /3GB switch in your boot.ini file unless your application on the server supports it. Such as a dedicated SQL or Exchange server. /PAE switch is for systems using more than 4G of physical memory.

[Bill_185]

Sunil: They are genuine HP/Compaq parts, # 127008-041.

Doug: I thought about swap-testing also, but 2 of the 3 are production servers and canâ t be taken down except late at nigh

[Doug Wogan]

Is the server not showing the correct memory production? You could take all the memory out and add 1 stick at a time.

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello Bill,
Just a question, was the RAM showing all 2GB before you upgraded it to 4GB?? If yes then why not swapping it around. Which means take out the Old 2GB out of the box and just leave new 2GB in to see if this shows up all 2GB. Please email me your contact ph no at sunil.jerath@hp.com. I am working night shift and would be able to do some troubleshooting with you or anyone at your site.

Regards,

[Frederik Nagels]

Hello,

I have the same problem, installed a ML570 server with windows 2003. On startup the server finds all of the 4GB but when windows is started I only see 3.62 GB.

Has your probleem been fixed?

Frederik Nagels
Belgium

[Bill_185]

Sorry, we never got to the ottom of this. The next step would have been to try swap-testing the memory modules, but this is a production server and its not worth the trouble. We've put this issue on the back burner for now. I suspect that its not really a memory hardware problem at all, but I guess we'll never know.

If you do find the cause of this, I would greatly appreciate it if you would post the solution here.

Good luck!