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Dell Precision T3500 RAM size issue

PiterMcFlebor
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Hello,

 

I recently got a Dell Precision T3500 (for free) and it came with a Intel Xeon W3520 and 3x2GB DDR3 RAMs.

So I bought 3 pairs of 4gb and installed them (the mobo has 6 slots).

I'm running Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS and it clearly shows the 6 installed RAMs but it only shows a total of 16GB, I don't really understand why.

When I bootup the BIOS shows an error on DIMM 1 but I run a lot of tests (onboard memory tester and memtest on ubuntu) and nothing showing up.

 

Some commands I ran:
  

administrator@ubuntusrv:~$ grep MemTotal /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:       16365320 kB
administrator@ubuntusrv:~$ free -h
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            15Gi       1,1Gi        14Gi        63Mi       558Mi        14Gi
Swap:          4,0Gi          0B       4,0Gi
administrator@ubuntusrv:~$ sudo dmidecode --type 17
[sudo] password for administrator: 
# dmidecode 3.5
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.5 present.

Handle 0x1100, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 1          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F372748
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  

Handle 0x1101, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 2          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F37274A
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  

Handle 0x1102, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 3          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F372732
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  

Handle 0x1103, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 4          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F37272D
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  

Handle 0x1104, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 5          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F37270A
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  

Handle 0x1105, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 6          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F37270B
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9

 

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Posted
22 minutes ago, PiterMcFlebor said:

Hello,

 

I recently got a Dell Precision T3500 (for free) and it came with a Intel Xeon W3520 and 3x2GB DDR3 RAMs.

So I bought 3 pairs of 4gb and installed them (the mobo has 6 slots).

I'm running Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS and it clearly shows the 6 installed RAMs but it only shows a total of 16GB, I don't really understand why.

When I bootup the BIOS shows an error on DIMM 1 but I run a lot of tests (onboard memory tester and memtest on ubuntu) and nothing showing up.

 

Some commands I ran:
  

administrator@ubuntusrv:~$ grep MemTotal /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:       16365320 kB
administrator@ubuntusrv:~$ free -h
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            15Gi       1,1Gi        14Gi        63Mi       558Mi        14Gi
Swap:          4,0Gi          0B       4,0Gi
administrator@ubuntusrv:~$ sudo dmidecode --type 17
[sudo] password for administrator: 
# dmidecode 3.5
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.5 present.

Handle 0x1100, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 1          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F372748
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  

Handle 0x1101, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 2          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F37274A
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  

Handle 0x1102, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 3          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F372732
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  

Handle 0x1103, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 4          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F37272D
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  

Handle 0x1104, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 5          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F37270A
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  

Handle 0x1105, DMI type 17, 27 bytes
Memory Device
        Array Handle: 0x1000
        Error Information Handle: No Error
        Total Width: 64 bits
        Data Width: 64 bits
        Size: 4 GB
        Form Factor: DIMM
        Set: None
        Locator: DIMM 6          
        Bank Locator: Not Specified
        Type: DDR3
        Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
        Speed: 1333 MT/s
        Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
        Serial Number: 4F37270B
        Asset Tag: 01232000
        Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9

 

is your desktop able to boot if you only have ram in the first dimm?

proud owner of a AMD Athlon 64 cpu

PSU tier list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1akCHL7Vhzk_EhrpIGkz8zTEvYfLDcaSpZRB6Xt6JWkc/edit?gid=1973454078#gid=1973454078

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Posted
15 minutes ago, PiterMcFlebor said:

I recently got a Dell Precision T3500 (for free) and it came with a Intel Xeon W3520 and 3x2GB DDR3 RAMs.

So I bought 3 pairs of 4gb and installed them (the mobo has 6 slots).

I'm running Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS and it clearly shows the 6 installed RAMs but it only shows a total of 16GB, I don't really understand why.

I had a similar issue with an X58 board and an i7-980X... I put six 8GB modules but ended up with 32GB of usable RAM.

 

Pretty sure it's a BIOS bug from way back in that era... you could see if Dell ever had BIOS updates for it.

 

2 minutes ago, strange13930 said:

is your laptop able to boot

Laptop?

 

Dell Precision T3500 Tower High Performance Business Desktop, Intel Core XEON-W3550 3.06GHz up to 3.33GHz, 12GB RAM, 500GB HDD, 256GB SSD (Boot), DVD, ...

Main System (Byarlant): Ryzen 7 5800X | Asus B550-Creator ProArt | EK 240mm Basic AIO | 32GB G.Skill DDR4 3600MT/s CL16 | XFX Speedster SWFT 210 RX 6600 | Samsung 990 PRO 2TB / Samsung 960 PRO 512GB / 4× Crucial MX500 2TB (RAID-0) | Corsair RM750X | Silicom (Intel) X540-AT2 10G NIC | Inateck USB 3.0 Card | Hyte Y60 Case | Dell U3415W Monitor | Keychron K4 Brown (white backlight)

 

Laptop (Narrative): Lenovo Flex 5 81X20005US | Ryzen 5 4500U | 16GB DDR4 3200MT/s (soldered) | Vega II 384SP Graphics | SKHynix P31 1TB NVMe SSD | Intel AX200 Wifi | Asus 2.5G USB NIC | Asus ProArt PA278QV | Keychron K12 Blue (RGB backlight)

 

Proxmox Server (Veda): Ryzen 7 3800XT | ASRock Rack X470D4U | Corsair H80i v2 | 64GB Micron DDR4 ECC 3200MT/s | 4× WD 10TB / 4× Seagate 14TB Exos / 8× WD 12TB (custom external SAS enclosure) / 2× Samsung PM963a 960GB SSD | Seasonic Prime Fanless 500W | Intel X550-T2 10G NIC | LSI 9300-8i HBA | Adaptec 82885T SAS Expander | Fractal Design Node 804 Case

 

Proxmox Server (La Vie en Rose): GMKtec Mini PC | Ryzen 7 5700U | 32GB Lexar DDR4 (SODIMM) | Vega II 512SP Graphics | Lexar 1TB 610 Pro SSD | 2× Realtek 8125 2.5G NICs


Media Center/Video Capture (Jesta Cannon): Ryzen 5 1600X | ASRock B450M Pro4 R2.0 | Noctua NH-L12S | 16GB Crucial DDR4 3200MT/s | EVGA GTX750Ti SC | UMIS NVMe SSD 256GB / TEAMGROUP MS30 1TB | Corsair CX450M | Viewcast Osprey 260e Video Capture | TrendNet (Aquantia AQC107) 10G NIC | LG UH12NS30 BD-ROM | Silverstone Sugo SG-11 Case | Sony XR65A80K

 

Workbench (Doven Wolf): Lenovo m715q | Ryzen Pro 3 2200GE | 16GB Crucial DDR4 3200MT/s (SODIMM) | Vega 8 Graphics | SKHynix (OEM) 256GB NVMe SSD | uni 2.5G USB NIC | HDMI add-in module

 

Network:

Spoiler 
                       ┌─────────────── Office/Rack ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
Google Fiber Webpass ── Cloud Gateway Max ═╦════ Flex 2.5-8 ═╦════ Flex XG ═╦═ Veda
                           La Vie en Rose ═╣ La Vie en Rose ═╬═ Doven Wolf  ╠═ Veda-NAS
                                     Veda ─╜      Narrative ═╝              ╟─ Switch 8-60W ─┬─ Veda
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝                └─ Veda (IPMI)
║    ┌ Closet ┐     ┌───────── Bedroom ─────────┐
╚════ Flex XG ═╦╤═══ Flex XG ═╤╦═ Byarlant
        (PoE)  ║│             │╠═ Narrative 
Kitchen Jack ══╣└─ Dual PoE ┐ │╚═ Jesta Cannon*
   (Testing)   ║┌─ Injector ┘ └── Work Laptop
     Bedroom ══╝│
        Jack #2 │        ┌──────── Media Center ───────────────────────────┐
                └──────── Switch 8 ────────────┬─ nanoHD Access Point (PoE)
Notes:                                         ├─ Sony PlayStation 4 
─── is Gigabit / ═══ is Multi-Gigabit          ├─ Pioneer VSX-S520
* = cable passed from Bedroom to Media Center  └─ Sony XR65A80K (Google TV)

 

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1 minute ago, PiterMcFlebor said:

is not a laptop, is a Dell workstation

 

1 minute ago, AbydosOne said:

Laptop?

sorry my mistake, sounded like the name of a laptop.

proud owner of a AMD Athlon 64 cpu

PSU tier list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1akCHL7Vhzk_EhrpIGkz8zTEvYfLDcaSpZRB6Xt6JWkc/edit?gid=1973454078#gid=1973454078

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Posted
24 minutes ago, PiterMcFlebor said:

When I bootup the BIOS shows an error on DIMM 1 but I run a lot of tests (onboard memory tester and memtest on ubuntu) and nothing showing up.

What's the error message? The BIOS could be fencing that channel off so the OS can't use it.

I sold my soul for ProSupport.

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3 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

X58 board and an i7-980X

probably because X58 chipset (or at least that's what dell info claims) only allows max 4GB and total of 24GB, some mobos allowed 8GB but your CPU probably didn't support more than 32gb.

 

6 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

you could see if Dell ever had BIOS updates for it.

it actually has the A17 which should be latest one according to this

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26 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Does shuffling a different DIMM into that slot change the error?

Changed RAM in DIMM 1 to DIMM 6 and DIMM 6 to DIMM 1 and got the same message (failure detected in DIMM 1), I read somewhere that this may be caused because of a CPU pin broken... I'm waiting for a new CPU that I bought, I will check then if there's any pin broken but no one replaced the CPU so it shouldn't have anything broken.

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Posted (edited)

x58 was at first 12gb with 6 2gb sticks. later on an update to put 6x 4gb sticks for 24gb. its posable ecc and an xeon might do higher but don't no. 4gb was kinda new at the time. there was the t5500 that had 2 cpus and more ram but thats an odd mb. evga had the sr-2 but they were vary hard to keep stable and occing didn't work well. sli was tricky too to add to things. hp had same kinda pc stuff too there hpz400 and dont no what there 2 socket mb was probly hpz800 or something.

 

now adays signal cpu is faster then 2 cpus same with gpu. 24cores 48threds on the cheap people used them for that that's about it.

 

ram speed and good ram was needed to keep a higher then 4.0+ oc

 

with one of the unlocked xeon w3680 and a program throttlestop you can oc on an non oc mb. i could not get it to work but i don't no what im doing but others have.

Edited by thrasher_565

I have dyslexia plz be kind to me. dont like my post dont read it or respond thx

also i edit post alot because you no why...

Thrasher_565 hub links build logs

Corsair Lian Li Bykski Barrow thermaltake nzxt aquacomputer 5v argb pin out guide + argb info

5v device to 12v mb header

Odds and Sods Argb Rgb Links

 

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Posted
1 minute ago, PiterMcFlebor said:

older rev you mean the mobo? also if that's the case why do I have 16gb instead of 12gb?

Like I said x58 got support during the lifetime of this system for 24gb of ram however not all cpu's will do it properly with all boards. You are getting the common 4 channels of ram issue can only be used as you seem to be using non ecc fast (for the time) ddr3 on a very early xeon. Which then often gets this issue.

 

The bios gets the 6 sticks just the cpu's fsb speed being an issue here basically and this leads to a lotta weirdness.

 

So just wait for your new chip and I hope its correct and will work.

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On 5/14/2025 at 6:13 PM, jaslion said:

So just wait for your new chip and I hope its correct and will work.

I got my new W3690 but unfortunately it keeps only using 16GB instead of 24GB.

Checked the CPU pins and none of them is bended or missing.

It keeps saying that there's an error on DIMM 1...

 

This is my htop info:
image.thumb.png.d3f38860dade4584f8cc3f830e67ede0.png

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I installed CPU-X on the Ubuntu Server and checking the RAM tab is showing all the 6 DIMMs are installed.

 

Dump from CPU-X: 

  >>>>>>>>>> Memory <<<<<<<<<<

        ***** Stick 0 *****
    Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
     Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  
            Type: DIMM DDR3
     Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
  Device Locator: DIMM 1          
    Bank Locator: Not Specified
            Rank: 4
            Size: 4 GB
           Speed: 8241 MT/s (configured) / 1333 MT/s (max)
         Voltage: 8.224 V (min) / 8.224 V (configured) / 8.224 V (max)

        ***** Stick 1 *****
    Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
     Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  
            Type: DIMM DDR3
     Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
  Device Locator: DIMM 2          
    Bank Locator: Not Specified
            Rank: 4
            Size: 4 GB
           Speed: 8242 MT/s (configured) / 1333 MT/s (max)
         Voltage: 8.224 V (min) / 8.224 V (configured) / 8.224 V (max)

        ***** Stick 2 *****
    Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
     Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  
            Type: DIMM DDR3
     Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
  Device Locator: DIMM 3          
    Bank Locator: Not Specified
            Rank: 4
            Size: 4 GB
           Speed: 8243 MT/s (configured) / 1333 MT/s (max)
         Voltage: 8.224 V (min) / 8.224 V (configured) / 8.224 V (max)

        ***** Stick 3 *****
    Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
     Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  
            Type: DIMM DDR3
     Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
  Device Locator: DIMM 4          
    Bank Locator: Not Specified
            Rank: 4
            Size: 4 GB
           Speed: 8244 MT/s (configured) / 1333 MT/s (max)
         Voltage: 8.224 V (min) / 8.224 V (configured) / 8.224 V (max)

        ***** Stick 4 *****
    Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
     Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  
            Type: DIMM DDR3
     Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
  Device Locator: DIMM 5          
    Bank Locator: Not Specified
            Rank: 4
            Size: 4 GB
           Speed: 8245 MT/s (configured) / 1333 MT/s (max)
         Voltage: 8.224 V (min) / 8.224 V (configured) / 8.224 V (max)

        ***** Stick 5 *****
    Manufacturer: 80AD000080AD    
     Part Number: HMT351U6CFR8C-H9  
            Type: DIMM DDR3
     Type Detail: Unbuffered (Unregistered)
  Device Locator: DIMM 6          
    Bank Locator: Not Specified
            Rank: 4
            Size: 4 GB
           Speed: 8246 MT/s (configured) / 1333 MT/s (max)
         Voltage: 8.224 V (min) / 8.224 V (configured) / 8.224 V (max)

 

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