[ubuntu-us-ut] why is my 4G of ram only showing as 2G with 32bit PAE? (was: 64-bit vs 32-bit)

[Aaron Toponce]

On 4/8/2010 2:55 PM, Christian Horne wrote:
> /proc/meminfo
> 
> why would the bios support it but a 32 bit PAE not? that's what i'm
> trying to ask!

My understanding of the RAM initialization process, is the BIOS just
looks for an electrical current to the memory sticks, then counts the
number of registers, and calculates the size based on what it finds. The
kernel, on the other hand, does a quick test to verify each register (or
RAM bank- whatever). If a bank is bad on a stick, the kernel takes out
that whole stick from the OS! So, if you're confident that you have two
good 2GB sticks, as memtest verifies, yet the kernel is only reporting a
total of 2GB of physical RAM, then I don't know what to tell you. Maybe
boot off a live CD, like KNOPPIX or Fedora, and see if you get similar
results.

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