From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 1 13:49:06 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7AEED16A41F for ; Thu, 1 Sep 2005 13:49:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cracauer@schlepper.zs64.net) Received: from schlepper.zs64.net (schlepper.zs64.net [212.12.50.230]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E0D3B43D46 for ; Thu, 1 Sep 2005 13:49:03 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cracauer@schlepper.zs64.net) Received: from schlepper.zs64.net (schlepper [212.12.50.230]) by schlepper.zs64.net (8.13.3/8.12.9) with ESMTP id j81Dn2Lo039362 for ; Thu, 1 Sep 2005 15:49:02 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from cracauer@schlepper.zs64.net) Received: (from cracauer@localhost) by schlepper.zs64.net (8.13.3/8.12.9/Submit) id j81Dn2j7039361 for freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org; Thu, 1 Sep 2005 09:49:02 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from cracauer) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 09:49:02 -0400 From: Martin Cracauer To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20050901094902.A39272@cons.org> References: <20050815125657.A92343@cons.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20050815125657.A92343@cons.org>; from cracauer@cons.org on Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 12:56:57PM -0400 Subject: Re: 4 GB RAM showing up as 3, BIOS memory hole and all that X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 13:49:06 -0000 Martin Cracauer wrote on Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 12:56:57PM -0400: > Somebody here must know this: > > I have a Dual Opteron board with 4x 1 GB RAM. The memory count in the > BIOS goes up to 640 KB + 3072 MB, and FreeBSD says it sees 3 GB. For what it's worth, I have my top gigabyte back. I updated the BIOS and after fatfingering the update and getting a new BIOS chip from Arima (overnighted for free with no questions asked, great service!) I now see all 4 GB minus the AGP area of 128-256MB. So cutting off all of the top gigabyte was indeed a BIOS problem. The old BIOS also misconfigued something about my RAM which had slowed it down severely. The new BIOS makes the board a pretty fast one considering I only have PC2100 memory. As always, dmesg, pciconf, mptable etc is on http://www.cons.org/cracauer/machines/wings/ So just as advice for people having the problem: this is an area where initial BIOSes often seems to be overly challenged. Martin -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Martin Cracauer http://www.cons.org/cracauer/ No warranty. This email is probably produced by one of my cats stepping on the keys. No, I don't have an infinite number of cats.