Comment 6 for bug 2039382

Hi Ray,

I can see the difference:

diff --git a/dmesg_working.log b/dmesg_broken.log
index 79e34be..de76884 100644
--- a/dmesg_working.log
+++ b/dmesg_broken.log
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ reserve setup_data: [mem 0x00000000fee00000-0x00000000fee00fff] reserved
-efi: ACPI=0xba282000 ACPI 2.0=0xba282000 SMBIOS=0xf0000 SMBIOS 3.0=0xf0020 TPMFinalLog=0xbabbe000 ESRT=0xbb0ca698 MEMATTR=0xb3db3018 MOKvar=0xbb29d000 RNG=0xba281018 TPMEventLog=0xa916b018
+efi: ACPI=0xba282000 ACPI 2.0=0xba282000 SMBIOS=0xf0000 SMBIOS 3.0=0xf0020 TPMFinalLog=0xbabbe000 ESRT=0xbb0ca698 MEMATTR=0xb4ee8018 MOKvar=0xbb29d000 RNG=0xba281018 TPMEventLog=0xa916b018
@@ -140,7 +140,7 @@ ACPI: Reserving DMAR table memory at [mem 0xba2b9290-0xba2b935b]
-NODE_DATA(0) allocated [mem 0x43f7d5000-0x43f7fffff]
+NODE_DATA(0) allocated [mem 0xb4ebc000-0xb4ee6fff]
@@ -218,7 +218,7 @@ Dentry cache hash table entries: 2097152 (order: 12, 16777216 bytes, linear)
-Memory: 16117124K/16648596K available (20480K kernel code, 4152K rwdata, 12720K rodata, 4764K init, 17540K bss, 531212K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
+Memory: 2505280K/16648596K available (20480K kernel code, 4152K rwdata, 12720K rodata, 4764K init, 17540K bss, 14143056K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
@@ -283,6 +283,7 @@ x86/fpu: xstate_offset[4]: 896, xstate_sizes[4]: 64
+efi: memattr: Failed to map EFI Memory Attributes table @ 0xb4ee8018

When everything works, you get your full 16gb:

-Memory: 16117124K/16648596K available (20480K kernel code, 4152K rwdata, 12720K rodata, 4764K init, 17540K bss, 531212K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)

and when it fails, you only get 2.5gb:

+Memory: 2505280K/16648596K available (20480K kernel code, 4152K rwdata, 12720K rodata, 4764K init, 17540K bss, 14143056K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)

The rest seems to be stuck in "reserved", but I looked at the e820 memory mapping and they were all the same. Very strange.

When it doesn't work, we see:

efi: memattr: Failed to map EFI Memory Attributes table @ 0xb4ee8018

If you look at 0xb4ee8018, that is on the EFI provided line:

+efi: ACPI=0xba282000 ACPI 2.0=0xba282000 SMBIOS=0xf0000 SMBIOS 3.0=0xf0020 TPMFinalLog=0xbabbe000 ESRT=0xbb0ca698 MEMATTR=0xb4ee8018 MOKvar=0xbb29d000 RNG=0xba281018

which differs from 0xb3db3018 when things work correctly.

It doesn't seem that you are alone either, these users also have the same issue, all with laptops:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1944019
https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/comments/12besqn/tumbleweed_sometimes_the_system_only_recognizes/
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1365324/ubuntu-reports-significantly-less-ram-that-i-actually-have

They all had the same "efi: memattr: Failed to map EFI Memory Attributes table @ 0xb4ee8018" error.

I checked your BIOS version, and it seems to be the latest, at version 1.26.0:

[ 0.000000] DMI: Dell Inc. Latitude 3590/09GV6M, BIOS 1.26.0 06/13/2023

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-nz/product-support/product/latitude-15-3590-laptop/drivers

One of the users in the bug report ran a system diagnostic from the BIOS. Could you boot into that and run it? It might do a memory check and maybe tweak the EFI memory layout to work.

One of the other users found that a USB-C dock they were plugged into was causing the issues. Can you boot a few times with everything unplugged from your laptop, and then a few times with things plugged in? Does it only occur when a specific device is plugged in?

Hopefully that will give you something to try for the moment.

Thanks,
Matthew