>> Eric Persson wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have a Fedora core 3 machine:
>>
>> Fedora Core release 3 (Heidelberg)
>> Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.9-1.667smp #1 SMP Tue Nov 2 14:59:52
EST
>> 2004 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
>>
>> It currently have 3gb of memory in it, and I have two spare slots which
>> I intend to fill with an additional 2gb of memory to get to a total of
>> 5gb in the machine.
>>
>> Is this possible or is there a 4gb limit in the kernel, which would
make
>> something like PAE needed. If so, is that already included in the stock
>> kernel used?
>>
>> Any other apparent caveats?
>
> Alexander Dalloz wrote:
>
> Does your motherboard support such an amount of RAM? You did not tell us
> which one you run. You should look into the manual. On non server i386
> x86 boards the amount of RAM is often limited to max. 4 GB, where you
> even loose the amount which is required by I/O components. Thus you
> often only have max. 3.5GB RAM even if 4GB modules sticked in.
Eric,
In addition to Alexander's points, there are a few other things to
consider when installing more than 4 GB of RAM:
1) 32-bit processors (without 64-bit extensions, such as Intel EM64T)
are limited to 4 GB of physical memory.
2) 32-bit operating systems and applications use 32-bit pointers than
can only address up to 4 GB of physical memory.
3) 32-bit hardware (such as PCI ethernet cards) can be problematic. I
have a Level 5 Networks EtherFabric EF1-21022T that required a custom
driver for our system. I believe it was a DMA bounce buffering issue.
If you don't have a 64-bit processor or a processor with 64-bit
extensions, you are limited to 4 GB of RAM. Since according to your
post you are running Fedora Core 3 i386, this is the most likely scenario.
If you do have a 64-bit processor (and assuming you want to keep running
Core 3), I believe you'll need to install Fedora Core 3 x86_64. This
will give you the 64-bit OS and applications needed to take advantage of
the additional memory.
Finally, if you decide to upgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit, evaluate the
hardware in the system beforehand to insure it will make the transition
smoothly. Hardware that is labeled as having a 64-bit interface should
be fine, but I'd recommend doing some compatibility research on
anything labeled as 32-bit before making the change.
To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, my 64-bit architecture
consists of a Dell PowerEdge 6850 with 4 Intel Xeon processors and 20 GB
of physical memory running Fedora Core 3 x86_64. That said, I am by no
means an expert on the differences between 32-bit and 64-bit
architectures. I hope this post was helpful, but if I have made any
factual errors please post corrections back to the list.
Thank you,
Matthew Roth
InterMedia Marketing Solutions
Software Engineer and Systems Developer
