Only 1G out of 8G showing up?

[beastmanh]

Hello all, thanks in advance for any advice you might have.

I just got an HP ENVY dv7, with an intel corei7 and 8 gigs of ram. I installed 64bit Mint Maya on it and completely wiped out winblows. After noticing it was running a bit sluggish I found that mint is only picking up, less than one gig of ram..

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~ # free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           907        801        106          0          2        187
-/+ buffers/cache:        611        295
Swap:         8085        186       7899

I'm hoping that this is just a solved issue that I wasn't able to find anywhere, but so far I haven't had any luck.. The Mem is showing up in the bios just fine, but not in mint. Anyone know why this would be happening?

Thanks a ton in advance!

[xenopeek]

Please run the following commands and share the output here.

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sudo dmidecode -t memory
inxi -Fxz

[beastmanh]

Thanks for the response! Here is the output:

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$ sudo dmidecode -t memory
# dmidecode 2.11
SMBIOS 2.7 present.

Handle 0x0000, 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: 0x0009
   Number Of Devices: 2

Handle 0x0001, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
   Array Handle: 0x0000
   Error Information Handle: 0x0003
   Total Width: 64 bits
   Data Width: 64 bits
   Size: 4096 MB
   Form Factor: SODIMM
   Set: None
   Locator: Bottom-Slot 1(top)
   Bank Locator: BANK 0
   Type: DDR3
   Type Detail: Synchronous
   Speed: 1600 MHz
   Manufacturer: A-DATA Technology
   Serial Number: 0000354C
   Asset Tag: Unknown
   Part Number: AM1U16BC4P2-B19H 
   Rank: 2
   Configured Clock Speed: 1600 MHz

Handle 0x0005, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
   Array Handle: 0x0000
   Error Information Handle: 0x0007
   Total Width: 64 bits
   Data Width: 64 bits
   Size: 4096 MB
   Form Factor: SODIMM
   Set: None
   Locator: Bottom-Slot 2(under)
   Bank Locator: BANK 2
   Type: DDR3
   Type Detail: Synchronous
   Speed: 1600 MHz
   Manufacturer: A-DATA Technology
   Serial Number: 00003516
   Asset Tag: Unknown
   Part Number: AM1U16BC4P2-B19H 
   Rank: 2
   Configured Clock Speed: 1600 MHz

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$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host:HP-ENVY-dv7-Notebook-PC Kernel: 3.2.0-23-generic i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.6.3)
           Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 13 Maya
Machine:   System: Hewlett-Packard (portable) product: HP ENVY dv7 Notebook PC version: 088B110000305910000620100
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 181C version: 52.24 Bios: Insyde version: F.22 date: 11/02/2012
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i7-3630QM CPU (-HT-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 19157.2
           Clock Speeds: 1: 1200.00 MHz 2: 1200.00 MHz 3: 1200.00 MHz 4: 1200.00 MHz 5: 1200.00 MHz 6: 1200.00 MHz 7: 1200.00 MHz 8: 1200.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Ivy Bridge Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
           X.Org: 1.11.3 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1600x900@60.2hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Mobile x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.2 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card: Intel Panther Point High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: 1.0.24
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
           driver: r8169 ver: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 2000 bus-ID: 05:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230 driver: iwlwifi ver: in-tree: bus-ID: 04:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 1000.2GB (1.8% used) 1: /dev/sda Hitachi_HTS54101 1000.2GB 0C
Partition: ID: / size: 923G used: 17G (2%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 8.48GB used: 0.01GB (0%) fs: swap
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 46.0C mobo: 46.0C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 169 Uptime: 5:51 Memory: 521.5/907.9MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.6.3 Client: Shell inxi: 1.7.33

[xenopeek]

Let's start with installing the PAE kernel, because I think you have the default one still? The default kernel would be able to see only 4 GiB RAM, and perhaps something is causing it to see even less. The PAE kernel can see up to 64 GiB RAM.

To install it, open a terminal and run the following two commands:

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-image-686-pae linux-headers-686-pae

[beastmanh]

Sounds like a good start, but I got an error trying to install the kernel. The update went fine, but it doesn't seem to be finding the kernel..

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sudo apt-get install linux-image-686-pae linux-headers-686-pae
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package linux-headers-686-pae is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Unable to locate package linux-image-686-pae
E: Package 'linux-headers-686-pae' has no installation candidate

Is there a typo or something? Maybe a different repo?

[xenopeek]

Drats. I think that is for LMDE and I got it mixed up Do the following instead, that will work:

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sudo apt-get install linux-image-generic-pae linux-headers-generic-pae

[beastmanh]

WOOOT! That got it!

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$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          7944        676       7268          0         43        442
-/+ buffers/cache:        190       7754
Swap:         8085          0       8085

Thanks SO much xenopeek

[xenopeek]

Aw yes I still got it. Enjoy the new install, it should run a lot better now

You might want to consider installing Linux Mint 64-bit in the future, instead of the 32-bit install you did now. Though 64-bit will use some more memory for each task, it will be faster for certain tasks as well (especially mathematical actions on large data sets; like archiving, encrypting, video transcoding, rendering, and so on). 64-bit wouldn't have had this problem either

[homerscousin]

I see. You said and thought you installed a 64 bit version but inxi indicates a 32 bit version. i686. You wanted the x64 version. If this is a new install, I'd download the correct 64 bit version and do a clean install now rather than waiting. I think you and your system would be happier.