Memory installed not what showing in dashboard

LPD7

I have 4gb memory installed and only 3gb is showing in the dashboard. This is new memory but even old memory which was causing crashes showed up as 3gb as well. I didnt catch it as I had blinders on and was focusing on other things I wanted to achieve but when I booted up my new box the disparity hit me like a brick.

Any ideas as to why?
What would be the command line exec to show the installed mem?

Thanks.

rcoleman-netgate

@lpd7 What's the hardware? is it possible the OS is slicing that up for VRAM?

LPD7

@rcoleman-netgate Just an x86, no special config, no allocating of vram, base Freebsd/pfsense install. The new box is similar with exception of component brands and I am seeing 4gb for mem.

rcoleman-netgate

@lpd7 I'd check with the manufacturer of the system and verify in the BIOS. If it boots and reads 3GB then it's 3GB.

Could try booting to a Linux LiveCD as well to see if it says 3 or 4. But it's likely a BIOS or board limitation -- I've never seen it happen myself.

LPD7

@rcoleman-netgate This is a system that I built for a client years ago and recovered when I built them a new one so I know the system ran with 4gb and I read the MB specs and 4gb is the max mem that can be installed. I will check the bios to see if that has any clues. Thanks for the feedback.

SteveITS

@lpd7 3 exactly? 3072 MB? Most PCs in the last 10 years or so use system memory for video and that can take a decent chunk sometimes. If it was say 3.5 GB I'd assume that's the case. The BIOS should show/detect the full amount though.

LPD7

@steveits To be specific 3261 out of 4gb, and you raise a good point as this box has onboard video for which no monitor is connected and the backup box has no onboard video and uses a pcie16 vid card, so maybe thats where the other memory went. I am going to look and see if I can disable or reduce the memory overhead for the onboard within the bios. Great observation...Thanks.

stephenw10

Just how old is it? There were some weird hybrid systems around when 64bit started to become available that still had a 32bit RAM restriction. At this point that's really pretty ancient though!

Steve

LPD7

@stephenw10 It has to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2007/08 give or take. I just couldnt throw it out as it still had life left in it and when I became fed up with consumer wifi routers and OpenWRT proved useless and I came across PFS I knew I found a new use for it.

The new box I just put together is from around the same time frame and has an Asus MB (early republic of games board) with 4gb of Corsair memory and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+.

The good news about the new box is that it supports 8gb of memory and has dual gb ethernet ports. It seems faster than the one currently running but that will change as I load it up but it has some room to grow, the other board is maxed at 4gb so it has its limits. Only drawback is that I put in an HDD drive I had and see myself replacing with SDD at some point

Now that they are both running I cant help but think of ways to put them to use, its like a disease, cant help but think about whats next.

I watched the video you sent on squid/squid guard and am eager to see if I can get SSL/TLS inspection working. I didnt catch the name of the guy who put it together but he did a great job, thanks for the recommend. I have never seen netgate hangouts before but am going to look them up and educate myself.

stephenw10

The Squid/Squiduard hangout was @jimp