Nick_Parker Posted January 9, 2009 Posted January 9, 2009 Hey Guys, We just bought 2 new Intel SR1500ALR 1U Servers: 8x 2GB DDR2-667 FB DIMMS 2x Intel Xeon 2.66Ghz Quad Core I understand that the motherboard/processor/chipset/PCI Controller reserves some of the RAM, however, I installed Windows Server 2008 Standard and when I get into Windows, the system shows it only has 12GB available... Is it really necessary for the system to reserve 4GB??? I could deal with 2GB at a push, but 4GB? That 1/4 of the RAM gone before you've even booted into Windows? Has anybody else seen this before? Is there anyway to change this? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated
SYNACK Posted January 9, 2009 Posted January 9, 2009 I don't think that it is being reserved, this is usually the case for 32 bit OSs but the 64bit Server 2k8 should address the whole lot. I think that the more likely scenario is that the RAM is configured in a hot swappable redundant mode which uses up some of the RAM to provide this functionality or that two sticks of the RAM are cooked. 1
Domino Posted January 9, 2009 Posted January 9, 2009 are all the dimms showing as registered? could you boot to memtest86 to see? You are running a 64bit OS as well, yes? 1
PeterW Posted January 9, 2009 Posted January 9, 2009 Check the memory options in the BIOS it could be that two of the sticks are being reserved as spares.
Nick_Parker Posted January 9, 2009 Author Posted January 9, 2009 Wow, thanks for all the suggestions, I am going to reboot the server in about 45 mins (when everybody leaves) and check the BIOS regarding RAM and try out MemTest... Domino, Yes, I'm running Server 2008 64Bit. Synack & PeterW, if that is the case, they are reserved incase 2 of them get cooked, is there anyway to disable this? I actually keep 2x 1GB Registered RAM modules in the server room incase of emergency, so I don't need the server to reserve it for me!
PeterW Posted January 9, 2009 Posted January 9, 2009 It will be in the memory options in the BIOS, the board does support memory sparing so have a look and turn this off it it is enabled anywhere. 1
Nick_Parker Posted January 9, 2009 Author Posted January 9, 2009 Thanks guys, sorted it out, turns out there are 2 things. The one server had the 'Sparing' option enabled, disabled that but it still showed 12GB, so I went back into the BIOS and there was something under [PCI Configuration] called [Memory Mapped I/O Start Address] It was set to 2.5GB, I set that to the lowest option, which was 1.5GB and... Hey Presto! I now have the full 16GB available!
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