Most of the computer's memory rendered unavailable in Linux after updating BIOS

[jttoivon]

After updating BIOS from "BIOS Q71 Ver. 01.15.00 12/28/2020" to version "BIOS Q71 Ver. 01.16.00 04/22/2021" most of the memory got unavailable in Linux.  The system has 16 GiB of memory, but now free -h shows only total of 1.5 GiB. In Windows all memory seems available. No other indication of the problem in /proc/meminfo and /proc/iomem is shown except that the total memory is 1.5 GiB. No large area is shown as reserved in /proc/iomem. But there is now an error message in dmesg that didn't use to be there: "kernel: efi: memattr: Failed to map EFI Memory Attributes table @ 0x72f69018". To me this seems to be the root of the problem.

The system is now quite slow, and starts swapping easily.  Any ideas how to fix this? Can I downgrade the BIOS?

[WAWood]

@jttoivon 

I'm sorry, but HP does not provide support for Linux distros -- including boot and installation issues.

IF you replace the preloaded Windows OS with a Linux distro, or add a Linux distro, then you assume full responsibility for maintaining that -- including solving any problems with booting the other OS and/or installing the other OS.

Modern PCs with UEFI, instead of the older BIOS, are especially difficult to install because you have to go into the UEFI settings and make several changes before you can even boot from a USB stick -- and we are unable to assist in that work.

Your best bet for support now is to contact the support forum of the distro you are using.

Good Luck

[jttoivon · Accepted solution]

I got this fixed. One of the following fixed this, probably the first one. First, I ran the BIOS quick diagnostic test, which includes a memory test. It didn't report anything wrong. Second, I tried immediately after to reboot from Ubuntu live USB stick with Ubuntu 21.04 on it (I have Ubuntu 20.04 installed on hard disk). After this operation, all the memory was again available. Probably the BIOS test touched something, after which things got back to normal.