Dell 690 only seeing 3 GB RAM (was: slow last 128MB...)

[Michael ODonnell]

> RHEL 3 is pretty old.  I think it might be old enough that you need
> to install a separate, special kernel package for systems which
> "large memories".

I'm building a kernel with the MTRR support disabled and,
just for fun, I've also turned on PAE even tho I should
theoretically not need it for just 4Gb of RAM.

I've just learned that a cow-orker is running Vista on one of
these 690 boxes equipped with 8Gb, and he says Vista sees it all.

And on one machine w/these same symptoms I've installed Debian
running a 2.6.16 kernel.  No joy - `still sees just 3Gb...

	[...]

> If you're running Linux on Dell, I highly recommend
> the linux-poweredge mailing list hosted by Dell.  See
> <http://linux.dell.com>.  It's nominally about PowerEdge servers,
> but a lot of the discussion is either generic and also applies to,
> or is even explicitly about, the Precision line.  There are some
> real smart cookies on that list, including Dell's senior Linux
> engineers (the guys actually writing the drivers).

Good info - thanks.

  --M

UPDATE: just as I was about to send that msg my build completed
        so I tested that kernel and ta-daaaa!  we can now see
        all 4Gb.  I'm betting it was disabling the MTRR that
        did it, not the PAE stuff...