# Real != Available Memory



## tobii (Dec 28, 2009)

Hello Everyone

For some Time I used FreeBSD i386 on a Dell Workstation mainly because of missing 64bit nvidia drivers. Now I've switched and added some more memory, but can only use 2938 MB.
Bios correctly detects 6GB of Ram.
Any way FreeBSD can use all of those 6GB Ram too?


```
FreeBSD 8.0-STABLE #4 r200295: Wed Dec  9 17:06:47 CET 2009

real memory  = 6442450944 (6144 MB)
avail memory = 3081572352 (2938 MB)
```


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## dh (Dec 28, 2009)

You'll need to use amd64 FreeBSD or PAE on i386.


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## phoenix (Dec 28, 2009)

32-bit FreeBSD can only use 4 GB of RAM, unless you use the PAE kernel, but that still limits each process to 4 GB of memory.

In order to make full, proper use of RAM over 4 GB, you need to use the 64-bit version of FreeBSD.

(Note:  this is a limitation of the hardware, not the OS.  It's the same for all OSes.)


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## tobii (Dec 28, 2009)

Sorry wasn't really clear.
I do have the amd64 version running on that Machine now.


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## VictorM (Dec 28, 2009)

can you check whether your Dell is on the latest firmware? they're so buggy some of the most unusual errors get "fixed" with each release...


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## tobii (Dec 29, 2009)

Awesome really good Hint!


```
real memory  = 6442450944 (6144 MB)
avail memory = 6162030592 (5876 MB)
```

Think I recall that being the max amount this Machine can manage.


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## VictorM (Dec 29, 2009)

glad it worked... we have Dell (networking and app servers) and Supermicro (for the NAS and iSCSI SAN), let me know if you run into more probs with the hardware (still learning FreeBSD, but luckily found this AWESOME forum)


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