Buggy BIOS reporting wrong OS RAM - whatever works for the normal case... Should I buy a DELL next time?

I know that this thread needs by Dell support, or maybe I'll get the standard answer E310 motherboard supports only 2 GB (official number).   But I hope that there are other materials here lovers like me, who have found a solution to this problem...

Are there any success stories of the E310 Bios reports 4 GB (all) OS kernel?  I'm under A03 version BIOS because according to Dell documentation, A04 upgrade will make me only ability to run more high speed CPU, no RAM upgrades.  What a bummer... When you upgrade CPU, one would expect that users will try RAM upgrade first, and where the team BIOS should have addressed this issue first before giving the possibility of upgrade processors! Here is my account of many hours spent on the research on the internet in detail:

Resurrect an old Dell Dimension 3100 erasure of the Windows XP with Ubuntu (Xubuntu specifically, but it could have been Windows 64-bit as well - is not serious). Version of 64-bit installed Ubuntu LTS 14.04.3. This machine has a Hyper threading, 64-bit capable Pentium 4 chipset from Intel 915GV (who may be able to max 8 GB of RAM, according to Intel). Updated from existing to 1 GB of RAM Kingston with purchase of 2 sticks of 2 GB Samsung (same model). I tried all possible combinations of 3 all the sticks of memory, as well as tests them alone on this machine. 4 GB or 3 GB, depending on the combination of the sticks, in that I put the BIOS reports. All the sticks of memory are good, and they run the machine individually.

The problem is that I see conflicting reports of some commands to command line and of applications such as "sysinfo" or "hardinfo". Newspapers of observed point syslog to 3.2 GB kernel is seen by kernel - not the whole 4 GB which is seen by the BIOS, or other command line tools. I'm suspecting that this BIOS is buggy and not all address space gives to the kernel. Here are links showing the conflicting reports:

  1. This is what kernel sees in syslog: http://paste.ubuntu.com/12404466/
  2. Command line indicating the presence of 4 GB: http://paste.ubuntu.com/12405884/
  3. Out of "hardinfo" application: http://paste.ubuntu.com/12405897/

I am aware that this machine was initially sold to me with 2 GB RAM max as official data. But, after seeing internet reports of others who have made 4GB and research in data of intel 915GV chipset, I think of this maybe a buggy BIOS that does not give the final of 1 GB to the kernel.

Hi Rdunnill,

I was informed that the cause of the loss of RAM in BIOS is due to problem 'PCI-hole', which are present in older systems.  Essentially, a lot of memory RAM is simply lost and not used by the hardware, because of this problem and the OS will get to use only about 3. DBM for the moment, it is not yet clear to me if the space occupied by the device drivers is included in the / 3GB or excluded.  So far, I know at least the part of (if not all) video memory is NOT included in the figures presented by operating system.  Other dependants of pilot data maybe OS and I am not deeply knowledgeable about the Ubuntu/Debian OS which I am now running.  So the answer to your question above is that you will see on 1 GB loss once again, if you are upgrading to 8 GB - usable RAM would be about 7 GB.  Can be an overdose, considering the price of a new machine vs RAM these days.

I read your response (during my research) in the en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19306285 thread, which would lead others to believe that all 4 GB of usable RAM.  You can change this answer here.

You run BIOS A04, but I have not upgraded to A03 because I see that the upgrade will do anything to the question of memory (but only gives superior CPU option, which I didn't need).   Upgrading from 2.8 to 3.4 GHz CPU BIOS would gain a little speed, but I do not run CPU intensive tasks on this machine.

Tags: Dell Desktop

Similar Questions

Maybe you are looking for