Arch Linux

olegario96

Member

Registered: 2019-09-01

Posts: 11

How to disable memory slot?

I recently bought a Acer Aspire 5 A515-54-75VH with 12GB RAM DDR4. I want to upgrade it to 16GB RAM. When I type htop in terminal it shows correctly 12 GB RAM. But when I checked the hardware itself, I just found just one slot of memory using a chip of 8GB RAM DDR4. This is the output of sudo dmidecode -t memory:

# dmidecode 3.2
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 3.0.1 present.

Handle 0x000E, DMI type 16, 23 bytes
Physical Memory Array
    Location: System Board Or Motherboard
    Use: System Memory
    Error Correction Type: None
    Maximum Capacity: 32 GB
    Error Information Handle: No Error
    Number Of Devices: 2

Handle 0x000F, DMI type 17, 40 bytes
Memory Device
    Array Handle: 0x000E
    Error Information Handle: No Error
    Total Width: 64 bits
    Data Width: 64 bits
    Size: 8192 MB
    Form Factor: SODIMM
    Set: None
    Locator: ChannelA-DIMM0
    Bank Locator: BANK 0
    Type: DDR4
    Type Detail: Synchronous
    Speed: 2667 MT/s
    Manufacturer: SK Hynix
    Serial Number: 2E611B66
    Asset Tag: 9876543210
    Part Number: HMA81GS6CJR8N-VK    
    Rank: 1
    Configured Memory Speed: 2400 MT/s
    Minimum Voltage: Unknown
    Maximum Voltage: Unknown
    Configured Voltage: 1.2 V

Handle 0x0010, DMI type 17, 40 bytes
Memory Device
    Array Handle: 0x000E
    Error Information Handle: No Error
    Total Width: 64 bits
    Data Width: 64 bits
    Size: 4096 MB
    Form Factor: SODIMM
    Set: None
    Locator: ChannelB-DIMM0
    Bank Locator: BANK 2
    Type: DDR4
    Type Detail: Synchronous
    Speed: 2667 MT/s
    Manufacturer: Micron
    Serial Number: 00000000
    Asset Tag: 9876543210
    Part Number: 4ATF51264HZ-2G6E1   
    Rank: 1
    Configured Memory Speed: 2400 MT/s
    Minimum Voltage: 1.5 V
    Maximum Voltage: 1.5 V
    Configured Voltage: 1.2 V

Obviously, I want to work with a memory in power of 2 and not multiple of 2. So, I'm thinking about to buy a memory chip with 16GB RAM DDR4 and disable the internal memory from the motherboard. Is there any way I can do this through software and not hardware?

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,372

Re: How to disable memory slot?

No the memory layout is configured before the OS starts.