Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:16:22 -0500 From: "Brandon S. DeYoung" <brandon@schoolpeople.net> To: <freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Asus K7V with Crucial PC133 ECC RAM Message-ID: <005701bfec24$e9b9a9e0$82571c18@austin.rr.com> References: <200007120629.XAA00772@mass.osd.bsdi.com>
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Mike Smith wrote: > ......using a "RAM exerciser" program here can help.... I hear they got a good "RAM exerciser" program here: http://microsoft.com/presspass/features/2000/jul00/07-12ie5.5.asp ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Smith" <msmith@FreeBSD.ORG> To: "Anthony Rubin" <arubin@concentric.net> Cc: <freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG> Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2000 1:29 AM Subject: Re: Asus K7V with Crucial PC133 ECC RAM > > Ahh, yes. Well, in this case the amount of memory 'lost' is indeed > inversely proportional to the quality of your RAM. The better your RAM, > the less capacity that's lost through various coupling issues. You can > also improve things by rotating your RAM regularly, and cleaning the > contacts with fine wet-and-dry sandpaper every couple of months to reduce > oxidation. Also you may find that as your RAM is "broken in" it will > regain a little capacity - using a "RAM exerciser" program here can help. > > Of course, the law of diminishing returns applies as well; spending > twice as much on RAM isn't going to result in RAM that only "loses" half > as much - there's some "RAM loss" that's just inevitable. Orientation of > the system is also important - and if you're really unlucky you can end > up with RAM that's designed for use in the southern hemisphere. Due to > the manufacturing processes there's always more of it than the northern > hemisphere type so the chip makers tend to try to dump it into the channel. > > Typically the sort of "loss" you're seeing (0.03%) is considered quite > acceptable - I'd expect that you can probably soak up at least 10x this > with an Enlightenment theme or a neat desktop sound scheme. > > > I just realized there is an error in my original post. The system reports > > 262144K with 256MB installed. This means FreeBSD always reports 80K less. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Greg Lehey" <grog@lemis.com> > > To: "Mike Smith" <msmith@FreeBSD.ORG> > > Cc: "Anthony Rubin" <arubin@concentric.net>; <freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG> > > Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 10:07 PM > > Subject: Re: Asus K7V with Crucial PC133 ECC RAM > > > > > > > On Tuesday, 11 July 2000 at 18:00:55 -0700, Mike Smith wrote: > > > >> I recently put together a system that uses the Asus K7V motherboard > > with > > > >> Crucial PC133 ECC RAM. I bought 2 128MB DIMMs. The BIOS is seeing the > > RAM > > > >> correctly as 264144K, but FreeBSD has 262064K listed under real memory. > > I > > > >> thought this was odd and wanted to make sure one of the DIMMs wasn't > > bad so > > > >> I removed both and then tried one at a time. No matter which DIMM I > > use and > > > >> which slot I put it in the BIOS sees 131072K and FreeBSD sees 130992K. > > The > > > >> only other thing that is strange about this setup is that the K7V BIOS > > > >> currently has a known problem when you enable ECC so ECC is currently > > > >> disabled on my board. Below is the portion of dmesg I am referring to. > > > >> > > > >>> dmesg | grep memory > > > >> real memory = 268353536 (262064K bytes) > > > >> avail memory = 256950272 (250928K bytes) > > > > > > > > There's nothing wrong with your RAM - some of it is being used by the > > > > kernel. > > > > > > I think he's referring to the 80 kB that don't show up in real > > > memory. I'd assume that's the BIOS. > > > > > > Greg > > > -- > > > Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key > > > See complete headers for address and phone numbers > > > > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message > > > > > > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message > > > > For those of you with no bloody sense of humour, the real reason is that > the BIOS has reserved some memory for its own use, as Greg correctly > pointed out. If you've studied this entire message for signs I'm on > illegal drugs - sorry. 8) > > -- > ... every activity meets with opposition, everyone who acts has his > rivals and unfortunately opponents also. But not because people want > to be opponents, rather because the tasks and relationships force > people to take different points of view. [Dr. Fritz Todt] > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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