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Date:      Wed, 17 Mar 1999 23:08:23 -0600
From:      "Matthew D. Fuller" <fullermd@futuresouth.com>
To:        Richard Dawes <rdawes@ucsd.edu>
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Broken memory (was Re: Proposal: Define MAXMEM in GENERIC)
Message-ID:  <19990317230822.Y25217@futuresouth.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.96.990317204209.323A-100000@huntington>; from Richard J. Dawes on Wed, Mar 17, 1999 at 08:53:12PM -0800
References:  <19990317202705.X25217@futuresouth.com> <Pine.SOL.3.96.990317204209.323A-100000@huntington>

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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
> ========================================



---

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| 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"                         |
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