Monthly Archives: November 2015

GRUB not updating, showing old kernels in boot menu on Ubuntu 14.04

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Grub boot problem on Ubuntu 14.04 that people seem to have had for older versions too: the grub boot loader does not get updated with newly installed kernels. Did not find a solution on the net though, so here goes.

Newer kernels get installed but do not show up in the boot menu. A bit puzzling, non of update-grub, grub-install /dev/sda or adding and removing kernel packages made any difference. At boot there was still the same stubborn list of old kernels, and the new ones were not listed.

Turns out somehow grub (v1), Ubuntu package name ‘grub’ had ended up on my system, where the config was grub2 based. So I did apt-get remove grub; apt-get install grub-pc and all was well again, including the latest and greatest kernel in the boot menu.

Kingston memory modules, part number vs revision number

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Some Kingston DDR3 DIMMS

Same Kingston Part Number, different Kingston Revision Numbers.

Upgrading memory in some boxes, it turns out that while fairly detailed DMI memory module identification info available through dmidecode on a running Linux system shows a ‘Part Number’ for each memory module:

Handle 0x0015, DMI type 17, 28 bytes
 Memory Device
 Array Handle: 0x000F
 Error Information Handle: Not Provided
 Total Width: 72 bits
 Data Width: 64 bits
 Size: 4096 MB
 Form Factor: DIMM
 Set: None
 Locator: P1-DIMM2A
 Bank Locator: BANK2
 Type: DDR3
 Type Detail: Other
 Speed: 1333 MHz
 Manufacturer: Kingston
 Serial Number: 3C1A27E7
 Asset Tag:
 Part Number: 9965439-121.A00LF
 Rank: Unknown

.. this part number is not always easy to look up, and it is not the same as a Kingston Part Number. On the interwebs, Kingston refers to part numbers like KVR16R11D4/8 or KVR1600D3D4R11S/8G. They have a helpful page about it at www.kingston.com/us/memory/valueram/valueram_decoder that explains what the number means and how to decode it. In Kingston lingo, that is what they mean by ‘Part Number’.

The dmidecode style ‘Part Number’ in Kingston speak, is a ‘Revision Number’. About this they don’t really talk a lot and not all revision numbers are actually mentioned anywhere on the indexed web. You might find them mentioned in data sheets. Kingston  do tell you how to find this revision number, at https://legacy.kingston.com/support/help_master.asp, probably because when there is a reported  issue, internally at Kingston this pinpoints more exactly what product version it is. A Kingston Revision Number looks something like the above, 9965439-121.A00LF. There is also a third number, called the Work Order. That is not very interesting as far as I can tell.

It might help somebody if I write down some Kingston Revision Numbers I encountered and which Kingston Part Number they map to – if you have the physical module, it shows both. There goes:

Kingston Revision Number  Kingston Part Number  More info
9931129-002.A00G          KVR1333D3D4R9S/4G     4GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1.5V DIMM
9931129-004.A00G          KVR1333D3D4R9S/4G     4GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1.5V DIMM
9931129-005.A00G          KVR1333D3D4R9S/4G     4GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1.5V DIMM
9965426-059.A00LF         KVR1333D3D8R9S/4G     4GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1.5V DIMM
9965426-199.A00LF         KVR13LR9D8/8          8GB DDR3L ECC Reg 1.35V DIMM
9965426-405.A00LF         KVR16LR11D8/8HB       8GB DDR3L ECC Reg 1.35V DIMM
9965439-121.A00LF         KVR13LR9S8/4          4GB DDR3L ECC Reg 1.35V DIMM
9965439-127.A00LF         KVR16R11S8/4          4GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1.5V DIMM
9965447-017.A00LF         KVR1333D3D4R9S/4G     4GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1.5V DIMM
9965516-490.A00LF         KVR16R11D4/16         16GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1.5V DIMM
9965600-012.A01G          KVR21R15D4/16HA       16GB DDR4 ECC Reg 1.2V DIMM
9965640-016.A00G          KVR21R15D4/32         32GB DDR4 ECC Reg 1.2V DIMM

Will add more as I come across them.