*BSD News Article 86159


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From: Paul Richards <dpr@elsevier.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Adding memory to FreeBSD: where did it go?
Date: 03 Jan 1997 19:11:19 +0000
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jca@bighorn.accessnv.com (J.C. Archambeau) writes:

> : What I don't know:
> : 	- What do I need to do to make FreeBSD see all 48M of
> : 	  memory?
> 
> The simple solution is getting rid of the Compaq.  Another option is
> replacing the BIOS with an AMI or Phoenix that works with your Deskpro
> 5100.  To my knowledge there is no other way to get around this problem
> with Compaqs under *BSD or Linux.  If someone knows a way, please post
> it, I'd like to know.

once FreeBSD is running the BIOS is never used. You can tell FreeBSD
how much memory there by setting MAXMEM in the kernel config file. You
will need to build a custom kernel though.

This is what the LINT file says:

# MAXMEM specifies the amount of RAM on the machine; if this is not
# specified, FreeBSD will read the amount of memory from the CMOS RAM,
# so the amount of memory will be limited to 64MB or 16MB depending on
# the BIOS.  The amount is in kilobytes, so for a machine with 128MB of
# RAM, it would be 131072 (128 * 1024). 


-- 
  Paul Richards. Originative Solutions Ltd.  (Netcraft Ltd. contractor)
  Elsevier Science TIS online journal project.
  Email: p.richards@elsevier.co.uk
  Phone: 0370 462071 (Mobile), +44 (0)1865 843155