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From: migieger@luva.stgt.sub.org (Michael Giegerich)
Subject: Re: FreeBSD, 16 to 32MB unrecognized on EISA machine
References: <348au2$bd@csnews.cs.colorado.edu> <348efq$l1v@orion.cc.andrews.edu> <CvLMqD.7Is@luva.stgt.sub.org> <34d83d$3tf@orion.cc.andrews.edu>
Organization: private FreeBSD site
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 1994 18:37:41 GMT
Message-ID: <Cvo6F8.Fn@luva.stgt.sub.org>
Lines: 38
In article <34d83d$3tf@orion.cc.andrews.edu>,
Andrew Gillham <gillham@andrews.edu> wrote:
>In article <CvLMqD.7Is@luva.stgt.sub.org> migieger@luva.stgt.sub.org (Michael Giegerich) writes:
>>
>>Me too. With a Dell 425TE - It's their Phoenix BIOS, it stores
>>only 15 MB of extended memory.
>>One Dell employee told me they are doing this for compatibility
>>reasons...
>>
>
>Hmm, I don't understand this. The boot program shows the
>correct amount of extended memory, the kernel just doesn't get the
You mean the POST during boot (my system too shows the right
amount of RAM when testing it during cold boot).
>right value. So the boot code is getting it from somewhere!
>(where the bios is hiding it I guess)
Yes the BIOS is the culprit. It only stores a maximum of 15 MB
of extended memory in CMOS (RAM locations 0x30 and 0x31).
And *all* programs (DOS, OS/2, Unix) that rely on BIOS interrupt
0x15 function 0x88 will get the wrong values :-(
I believe OS/2 and most commercial Unices don't rely on the BIOS
for telling how much RAM is installed in a system, but use custom
written functions - a way FreeBSD should go too...
>I guess I'll have to go peeking into memory locations.. :-)
Seems so :-)
-Michael
--
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Michael Giegerich | migieger@luva.lb.bawue.de
| (migieger@luva.stgt.sub.org)
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