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Date:      Wed, 27 Dec 2006 19:42:53 -0500
From:      John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org>
To:        freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org
Cc:        Erik Udo <erik.u@dnainternet.net>, olivier@gautherot.net
Subject:   Re: memory holes
Message-ID:  <200612271942.53932.jhb@freebsd.org>
In-Reply-To: <458E795B.9020805@dnainternet.net>
References:  <458D36E4.9000900@dnainternet.net> <200612240836.11747.ogautherot@vtr.net> <458E795B.9020805@dnainternet.net>

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On Sunday 24 December 2006 07:58, Erik Udo wrote:
> Yes, i got it working after having two memoy modules that match in bus 
> speed.
> 
> But, i was wondering how BIOS had 512MB of ram. Shouldn't the speed and 
> stuff be invisible to the OS? Or did i have bad memory?

It is invisible, but the memory may not have worked, and FreeBSD does a few
simple memory tests on almost all the memory before it uses it, so FreeBSD
may have just ignored the memory that didn't work.

> Olivier Gautherot wrote:
> > Hi Erik!
> > 
> > Mixing memory modules with different speeds is generally a dangerous thing to 
> > do. I would strongly recommend you match them all. The fact that your 384MB 
> > configuration worked is in no way a garantee that the 512MB config you 
> > describe should work (I would even say that it is a miracle that it ever 
> > worked in the first place). The problems you describe with the various *BSD 
> > sound very much like soft errors - which may happen with out-of-spec bus 
> > frequency.
> > 
> > Merry Christmas
> > Olivier
> > 
> > On Saturday 23 December 2006 14:30, Erik Udo wrote:
> >> OK. I've tested OpenBSD and NetBSD.
> >>
> >> Both find 512MB of ram, but..
> >> NetBSD crashes after boot stage when it starts to load the kernel.
> >> (thanks NetBSD team for not building the kernel image with debugging
> >> symbols, but you did build it with DDB)
> >>
> >> OpenBSD finds 512MB of ram too, but...
> >> it wont find my hard disk, even thought it has wd0 as a hard disk in dmesh.
> >>
> >> To add to my previous post, i tested with 128MB PC100 + 32MB PC100. Both
> >> memory modules was found by FreeBSD and put to use.
> >>
> >> Which leads me to the conclusion: Why can't FreeBSD use PC133 memory
> >> when OpenBSD can? Did someone forget to port drivers for memory modules? :P
> >>
> >> Erik Udo wrote:
> >>> I upgraded my hardware and software yesturday, and for some reason,
> >>> FreeBSD only 'detects' 128MB of the memory, when the BIOS is clearly
> >>> seeing 512MB. OpenBSD also finds 512MB of memory.
> >>>
> >>> So i added one 128MB ECC memory. There was one 128MB PC100 and 256MB
> >>> PC133 memory before, and it worked fine on 6.2-PRERELASE.
> >>>
> >>> Now that i upgraded to 6.2-RC1, from 6.2-PRERELEASE and added the 128MB
> >>> memory to the 384MB i had, the kernel started giving me this error on
> >>> the first line of the kernel output:
> >>> "Too many holes in the physical address space, giving up"
> >>>
> >>> Now, i searched google for anything, and found this earlier thread:
> >>> http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org/msg01624.html
> >>>
> >>> I also found this:
> >>> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/2005-October/013932.ht
> >>> ml
> >>>
> >>> Like the previous post says, the memory was found after the increased
> >>> PHYSMAP_SIZE. I increased mine to 2*32, later 2*128. It didn't work.
> >>>
> >>> Also someone told me to add this line to the kernel config:
> >>> options         MAXMEM=524288
> >>>
> >>> That didn't work either.
> >>>
> >>> I also tried to toggle all the bios settings on the computer, i even
> >>> upgraded the bios. Nothing.
> >>>
> >>> Now i found out that OpenBSD sees 512MB of memory, so there must be some
> >>> kind of trick to make FreeBSD recognize that memory too.
> >>>
> >>> Here is some output of my verbose boot:
> >>>
> >>> with 512MB:
> >>> real memory  = 134234112 (128 MB)
> >>> Physical memory chunk(s):
> >>> 0x0000000000001000 - 0x000000000009efff, 647168 bytes (158 pages)
> >>> 0x0000000000100000 - 0x00000000003fffff, 3145728 bytes (768 pages)
> >>> 0x0000000000c25000 - 0x0000000007d82fff, 118874112 bytes (29022 pages)
> >>> avail memory = 121798656 (116 MB)
> >>>
> >>> Anyone have any ideas?
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>> Erik
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list
> >>> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hardware
> >>> To unsubscribe, send any mail to
> >>> "freebsd-hardware-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org mailing list
> >> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hardware
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> > 
> 
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> 

-- 
John Baldwin



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