Memory Upgrade Troubles

[mcfool123]

Hi,

I recently increased the memory in my home server and can see the full 32 GB in the bios but I am not able to get ProxMox to see more then 16. The system is a Ryzen 1700 with 4 8 GB dimms. The mother board is an Asrock Fatality x370 K4. I have checked through the bios but I do not see anything related to memory that I am missing. In my old server I just added the ram and it showed up but not this time. I have tried re-seating the memory and changing the slots they are in also. Any help is appreciated.

 

[oguz]

hi,

if you are sure there's nothing wrong with the hardware and bios, you can check the following:

* lsmem -a
* dmidecode --type memory
* free -mh
* dmesg | grep Memory
* cat /proc/meminfo | grep Total


edit:

forgot to mention, maybe your new ram sticks are from a different manufacturer? in our setups we noticed that this causes problems

 

[mcfool123]

Thanks for the help. I have run all of the commands and they are below. It is showing the 4 sticks at 8 GB a stick but is only reporting the 16 everywhere else. They are from the same manufacturer (Crucial) but they are slightly different version of one of their lines but the same speeds. That may be it then. Have you found any way to test if that could be the issue?


root@ProxMox:~# lsmem -a
-bash: lsmem: command not found
root@ProxMox:~# dmidecode --type memory
# dmidecode 3.0
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 3.0.0 present.
Handle 0x0010, DMI type 16, 23 bytes
Physical Memory Array
Location: System Board Or Motherboard
Use: System Memory
Error Correction Type: None
Maximum Capacity: 256 GB
Error Information Handle: 0x000F
Number Of Devices: 4
Handle 0x0017, DMI type 17, 40 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x0010
Error Information Handle: 0x0016
Total Width: 64 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 8192 MB
Form Factor: DIMM
Set: None
Locator: DIMM 0
Bank Locator: P0 CHANNEL A
Type: DDR4
Type Detail: Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered)
Speed: 2134 MHz
Manufacturer: 859<
Serial Number: 00000000
Asset Tag: Not Specified
Part Number: BLT8G4D30AETA.K16FE
Rank: 2
Configured Clock Speed: 1067 MHz
Minimum Voltage: 1.2 V
Maximum Voltage: 1.2 V
Configured Voltage: 1.2 V
Handle 0x001A, DMI type 17, 40 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x0010
Error Information Handle: 0x0019
Total Width: 64 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 8192 MB
Form Factor: DIMM
Set: None
Locator: DIMM 1
Bank Locator: P0 CHANNEL A
Type: DDR4
Type Detail: Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered)
Speed: 2134 MHz
Manufacturer: 859<
Serial Number: E2440F5D
Asset Tag: Not Specified
Part Number: BLS8G4D30BESBK.8FD
Rank: 1
Configured Clock Speed: 1067 MHz
Minimum Voltage: 1.2 V
Maximum Voltage: 1.2 V
Configured Voltage: 1.2 V
Handle 0x001D, DMI type 17, 40 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x0010
Error Information Handle: 0x001C
Total Width: 64 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 8192 MB
Form Factor: DIMM
Set: None
Locator: DIMM 0
Bank Locator: P0 CHANNEL B
Type: DDR4
Type Detail: Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered)
Speed: 2134 MHz
Manufacturer: 859<
Serial Number: 00000000
Asset Tag: Not Specified
Part Number: BLT8G4D30AETA.K16FE
Rank: 2
Configured Clock Speed: 1067 MHz
Minimum Voltage: 1.2 V
Maximum Voltage: 1.2 V
Configured Voltage: 1.2 V
Handle 0x0020, DMI type 17, 40 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x0010
Error Information Handle: 0x001F
Total Width: 64 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 8192 MB
Form Factor: DIMM
Set: None
Locator: DIMM 1
Bank Locator: P0 CHANNEL B
Type: DDR4
Type Detail: Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered)
Speed: 2134 MHz
Manufacturer: 859<
Serial Number: E2440F99
Asset Tag: Not Specified
Part Number: BLS8G4D30BESBK.8FD
Rank: 1
Configured Clock Speed: 1067 MHz
Minimum Voltage: 1.2 V
Maximum Voltage: 1.2 V
Configured Voltage: 1.2 V
root@ProxMox:~# free -mh
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 15G 11G 3.8G 51M 660M 4.1G
Swap: 7.2G 0B 7.2G
root@ProxMox:~# dmesg | grep Memory
[ 0.000000] Memory: 16235164K/16708240K available (12300K kernel code, 2481K rwdata, 4312K rodata, 2420K init, 2416K bss, 473076K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
[ 0.084583] x86/mm: Memory block size: 128MB
root@ProxMox:~# cat /proc/meminfo | grep Total
MemTotal: 16418808 kB
SwapTotal: 7602172 kB
VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
CmaTotal: 0 kB
HugePages_Total: 0

 

[oguz]

It is showing the 4 sticks at 8 GB a stick but is only reporting the 16 everywhere else. They are from the same manufacturer (Crucial) but they are slightly different version of one of their lines but the same speeds. That may be it then.

maybe.

Have you found any way to test if that could be the issue?

you can try removing the old ones and placing the new ones in and see how it behaves.

i'd recheck bios/firmware settings and updates just to be sure, but it might also be hardware related.

 

[mcfool123]

I had ordered another set of ram to make sure it was matching sticks and it still only shows 16 GB. I have found a similar issue at https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/8vbmoq/only_two_ram_slots_usable_on_asrock_x470_k4/ and can say while not the same it feels like it may be the board. I was able to use both ram kits before getting the new one in a 8 GB x 8 GB layout no matter the sticks or their slot location. As soon as I added a third stick it went from 16 GB to 8 GB or ram for the system. The bios and commands I ran previously show all the memory installed but something is limiting the real value.

 

[tin]

If you can deal with some down time, try a few live CDs from similar distros - Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, etc and see if any of those show the same thing. Perhaps also try cat /proc/meminfo on an older (and newer if you're not already up to date) Proxmox ISOs (don't need to install, just boot the debug option so you get a working shell)

Also, check if you have "mem=<amount>" on your kernel command line (cat /proc/cmdline). If you've set mem= at some stage, it would certainly explain the problem. It's not normal to use that option at all, so it should not be present at all.