Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005, David Moberg wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
>
> > So that is why it panicked just after checking memory and finding
> > 252MB of the 256 it expected.  Do you happen to know why when the
> > BIOS was set to use 4MB for video RAM it had 252MB left, but when
> > it was set to use 2MB it had 256MB left? Some bug in the BIOS?
>
> Perhaps at 2MB the motherboard can use some other memory source, but
We are talking of video RAM here - do you mean that the chip might
come with its own 2MB of video RAM, but if you ask for 4M then it no 
longer uses that RAM but shares the motherboard's main RAM (DIMMs)?

> at 4MB it's too slow and has to switch to RAM? Maybe something else is
> enabled at 2MB which affects Linux's memory detection? I have no solid
> answer. The motherboard may not actually allocate 4MB if it's enabled,
> but 2MB may need to be allocated for a basic console.

I don't know what you mean about slow.  I have discovered that the more 
memory you put into a video card, the slower it tests out.  The memory is 
for increasing resolution and color depth.

 >
> > It was also set not to even use the onboard video but to use the PCI
> > card we added.
>
> But it still tried to take some memory? Nasty.

hwinfo and linux both only found 252MB of the 256MB when we set to 4MB 
video RAM, so it is not just linux.

> > And why did ramdisk linux work - because the video RAM came from
> > near the end and BL2 ramdisk uses the first 12MB?
>
> Perhaps when the bootloader set up the ramdisk, it did something to
> the memory. I'm not really sure.
>
> Have you found anyone else who has this problem? I would do a search
> for it. Someone else may have figured out what is going on in the
> motherboard.

Okay.  James had a similar problem which is how I fixed it.
I did search on the gpf: 0000 and lots of people get that for various 
reasons to do with modules/drivers.

> David
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org