Memory Issue after installing additional RAM–Solved

[Member greyowl]

I am running antiX 21 on a Dell Latitude D620. I increased the RAM from 3GB to 4 GB (two 2 GB sticks). However, the available memory is only 3.17 GB.

The Bios Setup shows the following:
Memory installed= 4096 MB
Memory available= 3319 MB
Memory Speed= 667 MHz
Memory Technology= DDR2 SDRAM
Note: Due to an amount of memory being assigned for system use, Memory Available is less than memory installed.

Below is the result of inxi -Fxz:
user@antix1:~
$ inxi -Fxz
System:
Kernel: 4.19.0-256-antix.1-amd64-smp arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
v: 10.2.1 Desktop: IceWM v: 3.3.3 Distro: antiX-21_x64-full Grup Yorum 31
October 2021 base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
Machine:
Type: Portable System: Dell product: Latitude D620 v: N/A
serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: Dell model: 0FT292 serial: <superuser required> BIOS: Dell v: A07
date: 12/18/2006
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 0% condition: 0.0/57.7 Wh (0.1%) volts: 4.9 min: 11.1
model: Sanyo DELL JD6057 status: charging
CPU:
Info: dual core model: Intel Core2 T7200 bits: 64 type: MCP
arch: Core2 Merom rev: 6 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 4 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1465 high: 1931 min/max: 1000/2000 cores: 1: 1931 2: 999
bogomips: 7989
Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Mobile 945GM/GMS 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics
vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-3.5 bus-ID: 00:02.0
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.20.11 driver: X: loaded: intel dri: i915
gpu: i915 resolution: 1440×900~60Hz
API: OpenGL v: 1.4 Mesa 20.3.5 renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 945GM
direct-render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio vendor: Dell
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 4-1:2 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
Device-2: Tenx USB AUDIO type: USB
driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
Sound API: ALSA v: k4.19.0-256-antix.1-amd64-smp running: yes
Network:
Device-1: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5752 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
vendor: Dell Latitude D620 driver: tg3 v: 3.137 port: N/A bus-ID: 09:00.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Device-2: Broadcom BCM4311 802.11a/b/g vendor: Dell Wireless 1490 Dual
Band WLAN Mini-Card driver: b43-pci-bridge v: N/A bus-ID: 0c:00.0
IF-ID-1: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 74.53 GiB used: 13.88 GiB (18.6%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Hitachi model: HTS541680J9SA00 size: 74.53 GiB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 69.11 GiB used: 13.88 GiB (20.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 3.75 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
dev: /dev/sda2
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 58.0 C mobo: N/A sodimm: SODIMM C
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2892
Info:
Processes: 157 Uptime: 8m Memory: 3.17 GiB used: 1.38 GiB (43.7%)
Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 Packages: 1616 Shell: Bash
v: 5.1.4 inxi: 3.3.25

How can I increase the amount of available memory?

• This topic was modified 4 days, 12 hours ago by greyowl.

Dell Latitude D620 laptop with antiX 22 (64 bit)

[Member blur13]

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https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/Memory-Available-Less-Than-Memory-Installed/td-p/3321276

[Member Robin]

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greyowl wrote:

The Bios Setup shows the following:
…
Memory available= 3319 MB
…
Due to an amount of memory being assigned for system use, Memory Available is less than memory installed.

Please check your BIOS settings for what takes your RAM. Maybe some shadowing settings, or if you happen to have an onboard graphics with shared memory, this also may take away remarkable amount of RAM already from the RAM usable by the system.

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Member greyowl]

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I checked the BIOS settings. The Video Controller = Intel 945 GM Graphics. The Video Memory = 8 mb.
Conkey says total RAM is 3.17 GB.
When I previously only had 3GB of RAM, the total RAM was 2.9 GB
This is quite a drop in available RAM compared to what is installed.
Is there any way of accessing more of the installed RAM?

Dell Latitude D620 laptop with antiX 22 (64 bit)

[Member Robin]

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Again, you need to check your BIOS for settings allowing to allocate another amount of RAM shared by your graphics device. There might be some entry for this. But I don’t own any board sharing the System RAM with the Video, since it is a pretty inefficient method, slowing down your system remarkably. So I can’t give you any details.

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Moderator christophe]

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On a web search, I found this bit of sad new:

The 945PM/945GM chipset supports 4GB, although some may not be available to Windows. Different laptops running a 64-bit version of Windows using those chipsets will have anywhere from 3.3GB to 3.6GB of that 4GB as usable memory, due to not remapping device space addresses above 4GB. The Latitude D620 sees 3.3GB if 4GB is installed on 64-bit Windows, so it’s probably not worth upgrading from 3GB, particularly on models with discrete GPUs.

https://hardforum.com/threads/trying-to-upgrade-my-dell-latitude-620-laptop.1783929/

(This is also the same info (from another source) that blur13’s link says.)

Otherwise, I agree with the advice Robin gave. But in the Dell D620, unfortunately, it appears there is no adjustments in the bios for this.

Edit:
I have a similar issue on my Dell D410 (32-bit) laptop that is maxed out at 2.5 GB RAM (0.5 non-removable + 2 GB removable), but it only recognizes 2 GB. The rest is wasted…

• This reply was modified 4 days, 12 hours ago by christophe.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member greyowl]

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Thank you all so much for the information, analysis of the problem, and an understanding of the limitations of the Dell D620.

Dell Latitude D620 laptop with antiX 22 (64 bit)

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