Re: More than 64MB of memory

[Bruce Smith <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> It's not dependent on motherboard per se, but architecture of processor
> and chipset.  A Pentium II is only physically capable of caching  512Mb of
> RAM (in L1 cache), a Pentium Pro can do 1024Mb.  Limits also exist for a
> normal Pentium, 486 and whatnot, but I don't have 'em handy.  After you
> have determined how much the processor can handle, you must worry about
> how the chipset on the motherboard implements processor caching if you
> desire to add gonzo amounts of RAM.  Tom's hardware page (
> http://www.tomshardware.com/ ) has several very good discussions on the
> topic accompanied by info and independent reviews of specific motherboards
> if you are interested.

Thanks for the more detailed description of the problem.

> A note with the append=128M command...use with care.  If you put the wrong
> amount into the append statement your system will crash in a spectacular
> manner, and start to do really strange things as you start filling memory
> up (I tried it once and nuked a file system).

Very true, there are warnings about this in the BootPrompt-HOWTO.
There is one other warning in the howto that should be noted too:

 | NOTE: some machines might use the top of memory for BIOS
 |  cacheing or whatever, so you might not actually have up 
 |  to the full 128MB addressable.

I read that before I added the "append mem=xxxM" to my lilo.conf back then.
So, to play it safe, I've actually been running with "append mem=120M" just 
to play it extra safe.  (probably overkill on my part by nuking 8MB)

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
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