From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat May 21 07:13:54 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AFCDC16A4D1 for ; Sat, 21 May 2005 07:13:54 +0000 (GMT) Received: from dan.emsphone.com (dan.emsphone.com [199.67.51.101]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2C6AE43D9C for ; Sat, 21 May 2005 07:13:52 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: (from dan@localhost) by dan.emsphone.com (8.13.1/8.13.3) id j4L7Dpnv076828; Sat, 21 May 2005 02:13:51 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from dan) Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 02:13:51 -0500 From: Dan Nelson To: Etienne Ledoux Message-ID: <20050521071351.GE51092@dan.emsphone.com> References: <200505210850.12364.etienne@unix.za.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200505210850.12364.etienne@unix.za.org> X-OS: FreeBSD 5.4-STABLE X-message-flag: Outlook Error User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: installing freebsd: only detects 4mb ram X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 07:13:54 -0000 In the last episode (May 21), Etienne Ledoux said: > ok, a long time ago I installed freebsd on an old beast. it has been > faithfull to me for a few years now. I want to reinstall it with > 5.4STABLE (not upgrade, I want to start fresh). But it only detects > 4mb of ram. it actually has 98mb of ram and I remember I had to > recompile the kernel to get freebsd to detect the rest of the ram. > but i can't remember how i managed to install it. I see the faq says > I need 5mb and for 5x I need 8mb. I can't put the drives in another > system because it's an old compaq raid array and I have no machine > where these drives would fit into. Is there any other possible way to > install this machine ? perhaps over nfs ? or a paramater at boot to > detect the rest of the ram ? Old Compaq machines are notorious for not reporting the right amount of RAM. Before the kernel loads, hit space and enter "setenv hw.physmem=98M" at the the loader prompt, then "boot". Once you're installed FreeBSD, you can add "hw.physmem=98M" to /boot/loader.conf instead of recompiling. -- Dan Nelson dnelson@allantgroup.com