Cannot hot add more than 3GB to Linux 64-bit or Windows 7 operating systems

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When trying to hot add memory to a Linux 64-bit or Windows 7 32-bit guest operating systems, you cannot increase the memory to more than 3GB.
• In the vSphere Web Client, you see the message:
  
  The number must be less than or equal to 3072 MB
   
• In the vSphere Client, you see the message:
  
  This setting is restricted because the virtual machine is powered on

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.0.x

VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x

VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x

VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x

Resolution

These conditions apply while hot adding memory to virtual machines with Linux 64-bit or Windows 7 32-bit guest operating systems:

• If the powered-on virtual machine has less than 3GB of memory, you cannot hot add memory that exceeds 3GB.
• If the virtual machine has 1GB of memory, you can add 2GB.
• If the virtual machine has 2GB of memory, you can add 1GB.
• If the virtual machine has 3444MB of memory, you can add 128MB.
• If the powered-on virtual machine has exactly 3GB memory, you cannot hot add any memory.

 

If the powered-on virtual machine has more than 3GB of memory, you can increase the virtual machine memory to 16 times the initial virtual machine powered-on size or to the hardware version limit, whichever is smaller.

The hardware version limit is 255GB for hardware version 7 and 1011GB for hardware version 8.

 

Linux 64-bit and 32-bit Windows 7 guest operating systems freeze when memory grows from less than or equal to 3GB to greater than 3GB while the virtual machine is powered on.

This vSphere restriction ensures that you do not trigger this issue in the guest operating system.