From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Nov 25 23:34:49 1995 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) id XAA20251 for questions-outgoing; Sat, 25 Nov 1995 23:34:49 -0800 Received: from Root.COM (implode.Root.COM [198.145.90.17]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) with ESMTP id XAA20246 for ; Sat, 25 Nov 1995 23:34:46 -0800 Received: from corbin.Root.COM (corbin [198.145.90.50]) by Root.COM (8.6.12/8.6.5) with ESMTP id XAA07248; Sat, 25 Nov 1995 23:34:49 -0800 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by corbin.Root.COM (8.6.12/8.6.5) with SMTP id XAA00178; Sat, 25 Nov 1995 23:33:55 -0800 Message-Id: <199511260733.XAA00178@corbin.Root.COM> To: "Marc G. Fournier" cc: chrisc@mail.bbcc.ctc.edu, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Ram Memory In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 25 Nov 95 20:34:35 EST." From: David Greenman Reply-To: davidg@Root.COM Date: Sat, 25 Nov 1995 23:33:54 -0800 Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk >> >Is there somthing I can configure in the kernel. It seems to be only using 64Meg of memory. >> >> You need to add: >> >> options "MAXMEM=" >> >> >> ...where is the number of Kbytes of memory. 98304, for example, should be >> the correct value for your machine. >> > Wait...it doesn't automatically detect and use all available >memory? It seems like I explain this about once a week. Sigh. Due to the manner in which FreeBSD gets the memory size from the BIOS, it can only detect 16bits worth of Kbytes in size (65535Kbytes = 64MB). If you have more than 64MB, FreeBSD will only see the first 64MB. To work around this problem, you need to use the above kernel option. There is a way to get complete memory information from the BIOS, but we don't have room in the bootblocks to do it. Someday when lack of room in the bootblocks is fixed, we'll use the extended BIOS functions to get the full memory information...but for now we're stuck with the kernel option. -DG