From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Jan 4 01:25:56 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id BAA08061 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 4 Jan 1997 01:25:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from godzilla.zeta.org.au (godzilla.zeta.org.au [203.2.228.19]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id BAA08056; Sat, 4 Jan 1997 01:25:51 -0800 (PST) Received: (from bde@localhost) by godzilla.zeta.org.au (8.8.3/8.6.9) id UAA30161; Sat, 4 Jan 1997 20:21:29 +1100 Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 20:21:29 +1100 From: Bruce Evans Message-Id: <199701040921.UAA30161@godzilla.zeta.org.au> To: avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au, se@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: bootloader & memory test... Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, hans@brandinnovators.com Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >Besides the point, that it would be very complex to do the right thing >if this code ever finds a problem, such a test would guarantee, that >the caches are "empty" every time you leave the idle loop. ;) Actually, the test would want to work on non-cached pages to be sure of testing main memory. You could even run the code from a cached pages to avoid losing I-cache, but I suppose a really good memory test program should lock itself into the L1 cache to avoid side effects. It would also disable interrupts ... Not good for an idle loop. Bruce