From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Mar 17 21: 8:57 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from shell.futuresouth.com (shell.futuresouth.com [198.78.58.28]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 135E015374 for ; Wed, 17 Mar 1999 21:08:51 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from fullermd@futuresouth.com) Received: (from fullermd@localhost) by shell.futuresouth.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id XAA22508; Wed, 17 Mar 1999 23:08:23 -0600 (CST) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 23:08:23 -0600 From: "Matthew D. Fuller" To: Richard Dawes Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Broken memory (was Re: Proposal: Define MAXMEM in GENERIC) Message-ID: <19990317230822.Y25217@futuresouth.com> References: <19990317202705.X25217@futuresouth.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.3i In-Reply-To: ; from Richard J. Dawes on Wed, Mar 17, 1999 at 08:53:12PM -0800 X-OS: FreeBSD Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, Mar 17, 1999 at 08:53:12PM -0800, a little birdie told me that Richard J. Dawes remarked > Hello, all! > I have belatedly started reading this thread, and I am mystified > as to what is meant by "broken" hardware (which I take it is shipped > that way?), with regard to memory. What exactly is broken? Do some > cheapo motherboards use specific chips that are bad at managing memory? > I guess what I'm asking is if this problem is well-defined, and, > if so, some pointers on further information would greatly be appreci- > ated. (My quick perusal of HARDWARE.TXT produced nothing.) I suspect it's not a -hackers topic as such, but as long as it's here I'll leave it until somebody bites my head off. This was a Compaq Presario 9232, shipped with 16 megs of RAM and a P120. Bought it (on closeout) in August '96. I've seen this with the vast majority (I'm tempted to say all, but I'll err on the side of caution) of Compaq's I've seen exhibit this, even up through some 3.0 SNAP's from mid last year (I think). Define MAXMEM, you're golden. Don't, it'll only detect 16 megs. I don't know if the npx0 trick works on the later versions; I've always had space/etc to do custom kernels since then, so I haven't bothered. But under 2.1.6 I could never get it to recognize the full 24; only the first 16. > ======================================== > Richard J. Dawes rdawes@ucsd.edu > ======================================== --- *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | Matthew Fuller http://www.over-yonder.net/ | * fullermd@futuresouth.com fullermd@over-yonder.net * | UNIX Systems Administrator Specializing in FreeBSD | * FutureSouth Communications ISPHelp ISP Consulting * | "The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, | * is because I haven't figured out how to light the * | middle yet" | *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message