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#1 2020-10-16 06:50:11

mipy
Member
Registered: 2020-10-16
Posts: 7

[SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

I have just bought a new laptop, an Acer Swift 3 SF314-57, and I have dual booted Arch and Windows 10.
Just about everything seems to be working okay except that my system can only 'see' (I don't know what the correct term is) 1/10 of the RAM available.

'uname -r' returns (if necessary):

'5.4.70-1-lts'

Although my machine has 16GB of RAM, 'free -m' returns:

total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           1630        1080         202         222         348         192
Swap:          1958        1071         887

I have done a hardware probe which may provide more information: https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=c49aa23f27

What confuses me further though is that '# dmidecode' returns:

Handle 0x000F, DMI type 16, 23 bytes
Physical Memory Array
        Location: System Board Or Motherboard
        Use: System Memory
        Error Correction Type: None
        Maximum Capacity: 16 GB
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Number Of Devices: 2

I think (although I may be completely wrong) that it has something to do with the UEFI settings as neofetch when booted in a live EndeavourOS environment also shows 1630MB of RAM.

I would also just like to thank you all, I am new to Arch (and to asking on forums) and I have already been amazed by how helpful and supportive this community is! If I have worded this wrong, been too verbose, etc please let me know, I am not familiar with forums.

Last edited by mipy (2020-10-16 12:29:31)

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#2 2020-10-16 06:56:07

fukawi2
Ex-Administratorino
From: .vic.au
Registered: 2007-09-28
Posts: 6,217
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

/proc/meminfo shows the full amount: https://linux-hardware.org/index.php?pr … og=meminfo

What does `top` show?

What's the output of `\free -m` (with the leading \ at the start)

And welcome to the forums smile

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#3 2020-10-16 07:02:16

mipy
Member
Registered: 2020-10-16
Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

Wow thank you for such a fast response.

'top' returns (in part):

top - 17:56:53 up  2:19,  3 users,  load average: 1.20, 0.99, 0.78
Tasks: 202 total,   1 running, 201 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  1.5 us,  0.0 sy,  0.0 ni, 98.5 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
MiB Mem :   1630.9 total,    169.1 free,    944.8 used,    516.9 buff/cache
MiB Swap:   1959.0 total,    552.4 free,   1406.6 used.    199.3 avail Mem

'\free -m' returns the same:

total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           1630         970         126         271         534         229
Swap:          1958        1390         568

That seems so bizarre though. Why would it 'know' that the memory hardware is there but not be able to access it all?

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#4 2020-10-16 07:35:32

schard
Member
From: Hannover
Registered: 2016-05-06
Posts: 1,932
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

mipy wrote:

Why would it 'know' that the memory hardware is there but not be able to access it all?

Well it doesn't. According to the output of /proc/meminfo you posted on linux-hardware, it only recognizes 1670.032 megabytes of RAM.

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#5 2020-10-16 08:04:48

solskog
Member
Registered: 2020-09-05
Posts: 407

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

mipy dmidecode wrote:

Maximum Capacity: 16 GB

It means the maximum supported RAM size is 16GB, not the actual size.

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#6 2020-10-16 08:19:50

mipy
Member
Registered: 2020-10-16
Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

But when I'm booted into Windows 10 I have a full 16GB available. So how why would it be different in Linux?

Last edited by mipy (2020-10-16 08:29:28)

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#7 2020-10-16 08:59:33

schard
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From: Hannover
Registered: 2016-05-06
Posts: 1,932
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

I agree, that this is weird. Is Windows maybe in some suspended state, that allocates most of the RAM when you boot Arch?
Maybe boot and run memtest once, just to check whether it recognizes all of the RAM.

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#8 2020-10-16 09:40:05

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,955

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

[    0.000000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x000000000009efff] usable
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000000009f000-0x00000000000fffff] reserved
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000000100000-0x0000000067947fff] usable
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000067948000-0x0000000068247fff] reserved
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000068248000-0x000000006a05efff] usable
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000006a05f000-0x000000006a42efff] type 20
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000006a42f000-0x000000006b4defff] reserved
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000006b4df000-0x000000006bbcefff] ACPI NVS
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000006bbcf000-0x000000006bc4efff] ACPI data
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000006bc4f000-0x000000006bc4ffff] usable
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000006bc50000-0x00000000cfffffff] reserved
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000fc800000-0x00000000fe7fffff] reserved
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000fed00000-0x00000000fed00fff] reserved
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000fed10000-0x00000000fed17fff] reserved
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000fed20000-0x00000000fed7ffff] reserved
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000feda0000-0x00000000feda1fff] reserved
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000fee00000-0x00000000fee00fff] reserved
[    0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000ff600000-0x00000004827fffff] reserved

Only 1.6GB are marked usable, the rest is in reserved (the last "reserved" block alone is 15.64GB - if I didn't cnp garbage, but I didn't check for overlaps)

Most likely suspended windows or maybe hibernated (disable windows fastboot)

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#9 2020-10-16 10:16:59

mipy
Member
Registered: 2020-10-16
Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

That would make sense because when I boot into Arch, the Acer logo that appears when I boot into Windows 10 appears for half a second. But I don't know how to stop that as fastboot is disabled already in the Windows power settings and in the EFI settings (and I have deleted the old hibernation file).

EDIT: I might also add that secureboot is also disabled in EFI settings

Last edited by mipy (2020-10-16 10:26:09)

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#10 2020-10-16 10:38:36

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,955

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

Reboot into windows, enable fast-boot, reboot windows (do not boot linux or any other OS at all during this), disable fast-boot, reboot windows, reboot into linux.

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#11 2020-10-16 11:04:01

mipy
Member
Registered: 2020-10-16
Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

Ah I found a solution!
I am not quite sure why, but when I made the grub bootloader the number 1. in the EFI boot order, all my RAM appeared.
It may have been what you suggested seth (in which case thank you!) but the first time I booted linux after doing what you suggested it didn't seem to work and I changed the boot order right after.

I'm just curious, why would this matter? Is it possible that by holding down f12 when booting to bring up the default boot menu it started windows?
Also how do I mark a topic as solved?

Thank you guys so much for your help, I would not have looked at the EFI settings had you guys not helped. As my first experience with this community I am so glad to be a part of it.
smile

Last edited by mipy (2020-10-16 11:14:26)

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#12 2020-10-16 12:25:10

2ManyDogs
Forum Moderator
Registered: 2012-01-15
Posts: 4,645

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

mipy wrote:

Also how do I mark a topic as solved?

Edit your first post and add [SOLVED] to the title.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … ow_to_post


How to post. A sincere effort to use modest and proper language and grammar is a sign of respect toward the community.

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#13 2020-10-16 12:29:45

mipy
Member
Registered: 2020-10-16
Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

Great, thank you smile

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#14 2020-10-19 10:16:47

fukawi2
Ex-Administratorino
From: .vic.au
Registered: 2007-09-28
Posts: 6,217
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Not all RAM available - Acer Swift SF314-57

schard wrote:

it only recognizes 1670.032 megabytes of RAM.

Oops, my bad. Misread that one.

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