<snipped everything hehehe how evil> This may not be related at all, but I've been following this thread and at certain times I wanted to drop in and stress that things like pci express cards should be re-inserted after the RAM has been (re)inserted. Perhaps the BIOSes are really that stupid that they only rely on memory adresses assigned by when you plugged in what. Anyway, it may not matter at all for you but knowing the kind of inquiring mind you have, and considering that this was one of the "sorta-would-it-matter" things hanging over this discussion, perhaps it's a point of interest also. This is how I understand it:
FreeBSD 5.4-PRERELEASE #0: Fri Apr 1 01:16:43 CEST 2005 root@:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0 CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz (3400.12-MHz 686-class CPU) Origin = "GenuineIntel" Id = 0xf34 Stepping = 4 Features=0xbfebfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE> Hyperthreading: 2 logical CPUs real memory = 1071837184 (1022 MB) avail memory = 1035120640 (987 MB) mptable_probe: MP Config Table has bad signature: \M^?\M^?\M^?\M^? ACPI APIC Table: <INTEL D925CV2 > [part of dmesg with this board] I have a rather new uniprocessor Intel board and the manual specifically stressed (in the light of the 4 BG limit and the &*^*&^:-o things BIOSes might do to overcome that -- the bios will want to have that reserved adress pool just below the 4 GB and depending on the bios it can map it above 4GB perhaps) that any pci express cards (my graphics card) must be inserted AFTER the RAM. Also, about the pairing of DDR2 RAM: you must alight the ram in both channels in principle (that is both in A not B), but if you don't it works if you have the same totals. Again, mobo docs should have all the quirky rules. I didn't want to disturb the discussion but in retrospective, I feel that perhaps some of these points might matter. My observations are on i386 not amd64 but the same kind of logic seems to apply AFAICT. HTH, (in retrospective of course ;-) Dan _______________________________________________ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"