0

I just upgraded by Gateway DX300x PC running Ubuntu 13.10 with a full 4GB of RAM. The specs say it should be able to handle this but when I check the System Settings it only shows 3.2GB of RAM.

Is this normal? I never upgraded a PC running Linux so I'm not sure if it should display the full amount of RAM. The PC previously had 2GB and it always displayed 2GB in the System Settings.

The upgrade involved 4 separate sticks of RAM that were brand new.

Thanks for any replies.....

user258881
  • 1
  • Are you running 32-bit or 64-bit Ubuntu? Have a look at http://askubuntu.com/questions/32272/why-does-ubuntu-only-show-3gb-of-ram, http://askubuntu.com/questions/106934/installation-only-recognizes-3-gb-of-memory-after-ram-upgrade, etc. Also, depending, your video hardware might be gobbling some of that RAM for itself. – Craig Tullis Mar 16 '14 at 17:11
  • Please [edit] your question and add the output of these commands: free -m and uname -a. – terdon Mar 16 '14 at 17:36

1 Answers1

0

If your system is 32-bit then this is no surprise. There are not enough bits to address 4 GBs of RAM on 32-bit operating systems.

Read this to get a clearer picture on why that is.

You can check if you are running 32 or 64 bit version of Ubuntu by running uname -a command. Look at the output and search for one of these:

  • "x86_64" - means you have 64-bit OS
  • "i386" or "i686" - means you have 32-bit OS
mbiber
  • 840
  • 5
  • 12