Hello,

I'm running Red Hat Linux on a Dell Poweredge 2650 Rack Server and wondered if anyone knew of a tool or command I could use to probe the memory slots on the motherboard.

I know the machine has six memory slots and currently contains 1GB RAM, what I don't know however, is if it contains 2 x 512mb or 1x 1GB and also what the specification of the memory is.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Issue the command "cat /proc/meminfo" for the memory info. Now this is just a guess!! If you issue the command "cat /proc/mtrr" the output will be something like this with one RAM stick installed;

"reg00: base=0x00000000 ( 0MB), size= 64MB: write-back, count=1"

and the output of "cat /proc/mtrr" on a system with two RAM cards;

"reg00: base=0x00000000 ( 0MB), size= 256MB: write-back, count=1
reg01: base=0xf5000000 (3920MB), size= 8MB: write-combining, count=1"

I was in similar scenario recently where I had to assess a machine for upgrade. One of the parameters required was how many of the RAM slots were populated, I used the above method, when I brought the server down for the upgrade, two slots populated. Alocate a time window when the server is not too busy, 3am if necassary, bring it offline and have a look inside.
Throw the Dell into the sea and buy a Sun machine running Solaris! Dell make great desktops, crap servers!!
Oh yeah, another way would be to get the shipping details from Dell.

Thanks for that info, I know the machine has 1GB RAM in there, just wasn't sure if it was 1 x 1GB or 2 x 512MB.

cat /proc/mtrr gave me this info:

reg00: base=0x00000000 ( 0MB), size=1024MB: write-back, count=1
reg01: base=0xfc000000 (4032MB), size= 64MB: uncachable, count=1


So I guess I have a single 1GB stick in there.

Thanks again, and thanks for the advice on server choice I'll bear it in mind.

By the way, I think Dell desktops are ok, but severely limited if you want to upgrade the damn things.

Alot of the early Dells were upgrade-able, I have four Optiplex G1 Desktop machines for general office use. The original processors were PII 266 they all took an upgrade to PIII 1000 running the A09 BIOS, though the other workstations are Dell XPS R350 that would not take the PIII processor as I previously upgraded the BIOS to A13 on Dells advice. Dell engineers discovered it was possible to upgrade the old machines and revised the BIOS software, all new machines have this revised software. The Server was a Poweredge Red Hat combo which I replaced with a Sun 280R a few months ago, price wise, yes it was expensive but it has not let me down once! ( touch wood!)