How to figure out if the memory is bad?
I recently had a problem where the computer (Thinkpad E430) hang while booting and I suspect that it is a bad memory issue. Checkbox test fail on memory, but memtest86+ passed. After removing the memory and re-installing I managed to boot the computer. However, the memory information looks odd:
I have 4GB or RAM and running ubuntu 16.04 64 bit
sudo lshw -class memory:
*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: a
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 4GiB
*-bank:0
description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: HMT351S6CFR8C-PB
vendor: Hynix/Hyundai
physical id: 0
serial: 0A545936
slot: ChannelA-DIMM0
**size: 4GiB**
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM [empty]
physical id: 1
slot: ChannelB-DIMM0
System monitor shows that there is only 2.6GB available and more than 50% is used even though I don't run any program:
System Monitor image after boot without running any program
grep Memory /var/log/kern.log:
kernel: [ 0.000000] Memory: 2562464K/**2730856K available** (8432K kernel code, 1291K rwdata, 3960K rodata, 1484K init, 1316K bss, 168392K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
How can I figure out if there is a problem in the RAM or elsewhere?
ram
|
show 1 more comment
I recently had a problem where the computer (Thinkpad E430) hang while booting and I suspect that it is a bad memory issue. Checkbox test fail on memory, but memtest86+ passed. After removing the memory and re-installing I managed to boot the computer. However, the memory information looks odd:
I have 4GB or RAM and running ubuntu 16.04 64 bit
sudo lshw -class memory:
*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: a
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 4GiB
*-bank:0
description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: HMT351S6CFR8C-PB
vendor: Hynix/Hyundai
physical id: 0
serial: 0A545936
slot: ChannelA-DIMM0
**size: 4GiB**
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM [empty]
physical id: 1
slot: ChannelB-DIMM0
System monitor shows that there is only 2.6GB available and more than 50% is used even though I don't run any program:
System Monitor image after boot without running any program
grep Memory /var/log/kern.log:
kernel: [ 0.000000] Memory: 2562464K/**2730856K available** (8432K kernel code, 1291K rwdata, 3960K rodata, 1484K init, 1316K bss, 168392K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
How can I figure out if there is a problem in the RAM or elsewhere?
ram
Can you please add the output ofcat /proc/meminfo
to your question?
– Chai T. Rex
Dec 25 '16 at 2:17
Looks fine. However, in most modern machines, you'd add similar size/kind/speed memory in pairs, so you can take advantage of memory interleaving, for speed. If you were to add memory now, you'd want to add another 4G stick.
– heynnema
Dec 25 '16 at 22:20
cat /proc/meminfo
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:09
MemTotal: 2602744 kB MemFree: 110756 kB MemAvailable: 148336 kB Buffers: 18716 kB Cached: 598856 kB SwapCached: 51144 kB Active: 1485224 kB Inactive: 799088 kB Active(anon): 1355032 kB Inactive(anon): 711628 kB Active(file): 130192 kB Inactive(file): 87460 kB Unevictable: 2480 kB Mlocked: 2480 kB SwapTotal: 2729980 kB SwapFree: 1081376 kB Dirty: 172 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 1626268 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:13
Mapped: 312972 kB Shmem: 399888 kB Slab: 76752 kB SReclaimable: 34952 kB SUnreclaim: 41800 kB KernelStack: 12064 kB PageTables: 56164 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 4031352 kB Committed_AS: 9933100 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 0 kB VmallocChunk: 0 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB AnonHugePages: 387072 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:14
|
show 1 more comment
I recently had a problem where the computer (Thinkpad E430) hang while booting and I suspect that it is a bad memory issue. Checkbox test fail on memory, but memtest86+ passed. After removing the memory and re-installing I managed to boot the computer. However, the memory information looks odd:
I have 4GB or RAM and running ubuntu 16.04 64 bit
sudo lshw -class memory:
*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: a
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 4GiB
*-bank:0
description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: HMT351S6CFR8C-PB
vendor: Hynix/Hyundai
physical id: 0
serial: 0A545936
slot: ChannelA-DIMM0
**size: 4GiB**
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM [empty]
physical id: 1
slot: ChannelB-DIMM0
System monitor shows that there is only 2.6GB available and more than 50% is used even though I don't run any program:
System Monitor image after boot without running any program
grep Memory /var/log/kern.log:
kernel: [ 0.000000] Memory: 2562464K/**2730856K available** (8432K kernel code, 1291K rwdata, 3960K rodata, 1484K init, 1316K bss, 168392K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
How can I figure out if there is a problem in the RAM or elsewhere?
ram
I recently had a problem where the computer (Thinkpad E430) hang while booting and I suspect that it is a bad memory issue. Checkbox test fail on memory, but memtest86+ passed. After removing the memory and re-installing I managed to boot the computer. However, the memory information looks odd:
I have 4GB or RAM and running ubuntu 16.04 64 bit
sudo lshw -class memory:
*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: a
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 4GiB
*-bank:0
description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: HMT351S6CFR8C-PB
vendor: Hynix/Hyundai
physical id: 0
serial: 0A545936
slot: ChannelA-DIMM0
**size: 4GiB**
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM [empty]
physical id: 1
slot: ChannelB-DIMM0
System monitor shows that there is only 2.6GB available and more than 50% is used even though I don't run any program:
System Monitor image after boot without running any program
grep Memory /var/log/kern.log:
kernel: [ 0.000000] Memory: 2562464K/**2730856K available** (8432K kernel code, 1291K rwdata, 3960K rodata, 1484K init, 1316K bss, 168392K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
How can I figure out if there is a problem in the RAM or elsewhere?
ram
ram
edited Dec 25 '16 at 1:55
TheWanderer
16k113657
16k113657
asked Dec 25 '16 at 1:52
EladElad
1
1
Can you please add the output ofcat /proc/meminfo
to your question?
– Chai T. Rex
Dec 25 '16 at 2:17
Looks fine. However, in most modern machines, you'd add similar size/kind/speed memory in pairs, so you can take advantage of memory interleaving, for speed. If you were to add memory now, you'd want to add another 4G stick.
– heynnema
Dec 25 '16 at 22:20
cat /proc/meminfo
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:09
MemTotal: 2602744 kB MemFree: 110756 kB MemAvailable: 148336 kB Buffers: 18716 kB Cached: 598856 kB SwapCached: 51144 kB Active: 1485224 kB Inactive: 799088 kB Active(anon): 1355032 kB Inactive(anon): 711628 kB Active(file): 130192 kB Inactive(file): 87460 kB Unevictable: 2480 kB Mlocked: 2480 kB SwapTotal: 2729980 kB SwapFree: 1081376 kB Dirty: 172 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 1626268 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:13
Mapped: 312972 kB Shmem: 399888 kB Slab: 76752 kB SReclaimable: 34952 kB SUnreclaim: 41800 kB KernelStack: 12064 kB PageTables: 56164 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 4031352 kB Committed_AS: 9933100 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 0 kB VmallocChunk: 0 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB AnonHugePages: 387072 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:14
|
show 1 more comment
Can you please add the output ofcat /proc/meminfo
to your question?
– Chai T. Rex
Dec 25 '16 at 2:17
Looks fine. However, in most modern machines, you'd add similar size/kind/speed memory in pairs, so you can take advantage of memory interleaving, for speed. If you were to add memory now, you'd want to add another 4G stick.
– heynnema
Dec 25 '16 at 22:20
cat /proc/meminfo
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:09
MemTotal: 2602744 kB MemFree: 110756 kB MemAvailable: 148336 kB Buffers: 18716 kB Cached: 598856 kB SwapCached: 51144 kB Active: 1485224 kB Inactive: 799088 kB Active(anon): 1355032 kB Inactive(anon): 711628 kB Active(file): 130192 kB Inactive(file): 87460 kB Unevictable: 2480 kB Mlocked: 2480 kB SwapTotal: 2729980 kB SwapFree: 1081376 kB Dirty: 172 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 1626268 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:13
Mapped: 312972 kB Shmem: 399888 kB Slab: 76752 kB SReclaimable: 34952 kB SUnreclaim: 41800 kB KernelStack: 12064 kB PageTables: 56164 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 4031352 kB Committed_AS: 9933100 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 0 kB VmallocChunk: 0 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB AnonHugePages: 387072 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:14
Can you please add the output of
cat /proc/meminfo
to your question?– Chai T. Rex
Dec 25 '16 at 2:17
Can you please add the output of
cat /proc/meminfo
to your question?– Chai T. Rex
Dec 25 '16 at 2:17
Looks fine. However, in most modern machines, you'd add similar size/kind/speed memory in pairs, so you can take advantage of memory interleaving, for speed. If you were to add memory now, you'd want to add another 4G stick.
– heynnema
Dec 25 '16 at 22:20
Looks fine. However, in most modern machines, you'd add similar size/kind/speed memory in pairs, so you can take advantage of memory interleaving, for speed. If you were to add memory now, you'd want to add another 4G stick.
– heynnema
Dec 25 '16 at 22:20
cat /proc/meminfo
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:09
cat /proc/meminfo
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:09
MemTotal: 2602744 kB MemFree: 110756 kB MemAvailable: 148336 kB Buffers: 18716 kB Cached: 598856 kB SwapCached: 51144 kB Active: 1485224 kB Inactive: 799088 kB Active(anon): 1355032 kB Inactive(anon): 711628 kB Active(file): 130192 kB Inactive(file): 87460 kB Unevictable: 2480 kB Mlocked: 2480 kB SwapTotal: 2729980 kB SwapFree: 1081376 kB Dirty: 172 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 1626268 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:13
MemTotal: 2602744 kB MemFree: 110756 kB MemAvailable: 148336 kB Buffers: 18716 kB Cached: 598856 kB SwapCached: 51144 kB Active: 1485224 kB Inactive: 799088 kB Active(anon): 1355032 kB Inactive(anon): 711628 kB Active(file): 130192 kB Inactive(file): 87460 kB Unevictable: 2480 kB Mlocked: 2480 kB SwapTotal: 2729980 kB SwapFree: 1081376 kB Dirty: 172 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 1626268 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:13
Mapped: 312972 kB Shmem: 399888 kB Slab: 76752 kB SReclaimable: 34952 kB SUnreclaim: 41800 kB KernelStack: 12064 kB PageTables: 56164 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 4031352 kB Committed_AS: 9933100 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 0 kB VmallocChunk: 0 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB AnonHugePages: 387072 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:14
Mapped: 312972 kB Shmem: 399888 kB Slab: 76752 kB SReclaimable: 34952 kB SUnreclaim: 41800 kB KernelStack: 12064 kB PageTables: 56164 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 4031352 kB Committed_AS: 9933100 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 0 kB VmallocChunk: 0 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB AnonHugePages: 387072 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:14
|
show 1 more comment
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
I'd suggest booting from USB memory stick (e.g. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS). Also make sure to use 64 bit variant if you still can find 32 bit version somewhere.
The fact that lshw
lists memory funny is not unexpected. The system I'm currently using has 4x8 GB of DDR3 memory and lshw
listing looks basically like this:
*-memory:0 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 1
*-bank UNCLAIMED
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: 99U5471-036.A00LF
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: 6B2B875D
slot: ChannelA-DIMM0
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-memory:1
description: System Memory
physical id: 5e
slot: System board or motherboard
*-bank:0
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: KHX1600C10D3/8GX
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: B804123E
slot: ChannelA-DIMM1
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: 99U5471-036.A00LF
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 1
serial: 692B865D
slot: ChannelB-DIMM0
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:2
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: KHX1600C10D3/8GX
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 2
serial: B704D03D
slot: ChannelB-DIMM1
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-memory:2 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 2
*-memory:3 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 3
Note how memory:0
seems to have one UNCLAIMED
bank which has one stick and memory:1
has three sticks and memory:2
and memory:3
are empty.
The slot:
names seem to be okay so I would only trust those.
However, looking through sudo dmidecode
output, it seems that this may be due BIOS bug because DMI seems to tell similar configuration for memory.
In the end, if grep "MemTotal" /proc/meminfo
does not match the actual memory (minus GPU memory reserved for integrated graphics), then Linux cannot use all of your actual memory. If that is the case, I'd try to look for BIOS updates or try faking OS for ACPI: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DSDT. In case of broken bios, you could also try noacpi
kernel flag which will disable e.g. power management as a side-effect but will help with most ACPI/BIOS problems.
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "89"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});
function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: true,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: 10,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});
}
});
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2faskubuntu.com%2fquestions%2f864316%2fhow-to-figure-out-if-the-memory-is-bad%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
I'd suggest booting from USB memory stick (e.g. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS). Also make sure to use 64 bit variant if you still can find 32 bit version somewhere.
The fact that lshw
lists memory funny is not unexpected. The system I'm currently using has 4x8 GB of DDR3 memory and lshw
listing looks basically like this:
*-memory:0 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 1
*-bank UNCLAIMED
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: 99U5471-036.A00LF
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: 6B2B875D
slot: ChannelA-DIMM0
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-memory:1
description: System Memory
physical id: 5e
slot: System board or motherboard
*-bank:0
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: KHX1600C10D3/8GX
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: B804123E
slot: ChannelA-DIMM1
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: 99U5471-036.A00LF
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 1
serial: 692B865D
slot: ChannelB-DIMM0
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:2
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: KHX1600C10D3/8GX
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 2
serial: B704D03D
slot: ChannelB-DIMM1
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-memory:2 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 2
*-memory:3 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 3
Note how memory:0
seems to have one UNCLAIMED
bank which has one stick and memory:1
has three sticks and memory:2
and memory:3
are empty.
The slot:
names seem to be okay so I would only trust those.
However, looking through sudo dmidecode
output, it seems that this may be due BIOS bug because DMI seems to tell similar configuration for memory.
In the end, if grep "MemTotal" /proc/meminfo
does not match the actual memory (minus GPU memory reserved for integrated graphics), then Linux cannot use all of your actual memory. If that is the case, I'd try to look for BIOS updates or try faking OS for ACPI: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DSDT. In case of broken bios, you could also try noacpi
kernel flag which will disable e.g. power management as a side-effect but will help with most ACPI/BIOS problems.
add a comment |
I'd suggest booting from USB memory stick (e.g. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS). Also make sure to use 64 bit variant if you still can find 32 bit version somewhere.
The fact that lshw
lists memory funny is not unexpected. The system I'm currently using has 4x8 GB of DDR3 memory and lshw
listing looks basically like this:
*-memory:0 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 1
*-bank UNCLAIMED
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: 99U5471-036.A00LF
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: 6B2B875D
slot: ChannelA-DIMM0
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-memory:1
description: System Memory
physical id: 5e
slot: System board or motherboard
*-bank:0
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: KHX1600C10D3/8GX
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: B804123E
slot: ChannelA-DIMM1
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: 99U5471-036.A00LF
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 1
serial: 692B865D
slot: ChannelB-DIMM0
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:2
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: KHX1600C10D3/8GX
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 2
serial: B704D03D
slot: ChannelB-DIMM1
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-memory:2 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 2
*-memory:3 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 3
Note how memory:0
seems to have one UNCLAIMED
bank which has one stick and memory:1
has three sticks and memory:2
and memory:3
are empty.
The slot:
names seem to be okay so I would only trust those.
However, looking through sudo dmidecode
output, it seems that this may be due BIOS bug because DMI seems to tell similar configuration for memory.
In the end, if grep "MemTotal" /proc/meminfo
does not match the actual memory (minus GPU memory reserved for integrated graphics), then Linux cannot use all of your actual memory. If that is the case, I'd try to look for BIOS updates or try faking OS for ACPI: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DSDT. In case of broken bios, you could also try noacpi
kernel flag which will disable e.g. power management as a side-effect but will help with most ACPI/BIOS problems.
add a comment |
I'd suggest booting from USB memory stick (e.g. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS). Also make sure to use 64 bit variant if you still can find 32 bit version somewhere.
The fact that lshw
lists memory funny is not unexpected. The system I'm currently using has 4x8 GB of DDR3 memory and lshw
listing looks basically like this:
*-memory:0 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 1
*-bank UNCLAIMED
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: 99U5471-036.A00LF
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: 6B2B875D
slot: ChannelA-DIMM0
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-memory:1
description: System Memory
physical id: 5e
slot: System board or motherboard
*-bank:0
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: KHX1600C10D3/8GX
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: B804123E
slot: ChannelA-DIMM1
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: 99U5471-036.A00LF
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 1
serial: 692B865D
slot: ChannelB-DIMM0
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:2
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: KHX1600C10D3/8GX
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 2
serial: B704D03D
slot: ChannelB-DIMM1
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-memory:2 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 2
*-memory:3 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 3
Note how memory:0
seems to have one UNCLAIMED
bank which has one stick and memory:1
has three sticks and memory:2
and memory:3
are empty.
The slot:
names seem to be okay so I would only trust those.
However, looking through sudo dmidecode
output, it seems that this may be due BIOS bug because DMI seems to tell similar configuration for memory.
In the end, if grep "MemTotal" /proc/meminfo
does not match the actual memory (minus GPU memory reserved for integrated graphics), then Linux cannot use all of your actual memory. If that is the case, I'd try to look for BIOS updates or try faking OS for ACPI: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DSDT. In case of broken bios, you could also try noacpi
kernel flag which will disable e.g. power management as a side-effect but will help with most ACPI/BIOS problems.
I'd suggest booting from USB memory stick (e.g. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS). Also make sure to use 64 bit variant if you still can find 32 bit version somewhere.
The fact that lshw
lists memory funny is not unexpected. The system I'm currently using has 4x8 GB of DDR3 memory and lshw
listing looks basically like this:
*-memory:0 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 1
*-bank UNCLAIMED
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: 99U5471-036.A00LF
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: 6B2B875D
slot: ChannelA-DIMM0
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-memory:1
description: System Memory
physical id: 5e
slot: System board or motherboard
*-bank:0
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: KHX1600C10D3/8GX
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: B804123E
slot: ChannelA-DIMM1
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: 99U5471-036.A00LF
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 1
serial: 692B865D
slot: ChannelB-DIMM0
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:2
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
product: KHX1600C10D3/8GX
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 2
serial: B704D03D
slot: ChannelB-DIMM1
size: 8GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1333MHz (0.8ns)
*-memory:2 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 2
*-memory:3 UNCLAIMED
physical id: 3
Note how memory:0
seems to have one UNCLAIMED
bank which has one stick and memory:1
has three sticks and memory:2
and memory:3
are empty.
The slot:
names seem to be okay so I would only trust those.
However, looking through sudo dmidecode
output, it seems that this may be due BIOS bug because DMI seems to tell similar configuration for memory.
In the end, if grep "MemTotal" /proc/meminfo
does not match the actual memory (minus GPU memory reserved for integrated graphics), then Linux cannot use all of your actual memory. If that is the case, I'd try to look for BIOS updates or try faking OS for ACPI: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DSDT. In case of broken bios, you could also try noacpi
kernel flag which will disable e.g. power management as a side-effect but will help with most ACPI/BIOS problems.
answered Jan 9 at 7:22
Mikko RantalainenMikko Rantalainen
554515
554515
add a comment |
add a comment |
Thanks for contributing an answer to Ask Ubuntu!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2faskubuntu.com%2fquestions%2f864316%2fhow-to-figure-out-if-the-memory-is-bad%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Can you please add the output of
cat /proc/meminfo
to your question?– Chai T. Rex
Dec 25 '16 at 2:17
Looks fine. However, in most modern machines, you'd add similar size/kind/speed memory in pairs, so you can take advantage of memory interleaving, for speed. If you were to add memory now, you'd want to add another 4G stick.
– heynnema
Dec 25 '16 at 22:20
cat /proc/meminfo
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:09
MemTotal: 2602744 kB MemFree: 110756 kB MemAvailable: 148336 kB Buffers: 18716 kB Cached: 598856 kB SwapCached: 51144 kB Active: 1485224 kB Inactive: 799088 kB Active(anon): 1355032 kB Inactive(anon): 711628 kB Active(file): 130192 kB Inactive(file): 87460 kB Unevictable: 2480 kB Mlocked: 2480 kB SwapTotal: 2729980 kB SwapFree: 1081376 kB Dirty: 172 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 1626268 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:13
Mapped: 312972 kB Shmem: 399888 kB Slab: 76752 kB SReclaimable: 34952 kB SUnreclaim: 41800 kB KernelStack: 12064 kB PageTables: 56164 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 4031352 kB Committed_AS: 9933100 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 0 kB VmallocChunk: 0 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB AnonHugePages: 387072 kB
– Elad
Dec 31 '16 at 18:14