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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org>2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org>2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700
commit1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 (patch)
tree0bba044c4ce775e45a88a51686b5d9f90697ea9d /Documentation/memory.txt
Linux-2.6.12-rc2v2.6.12-rc2
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history, even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about 3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good infrastructure for it. Let it rip!
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+There are several classic problems related to memory on Linux
+systems.
+
+ 1) There are some buggy motherboards which cannot properly
+ deal with the memory above 16MB. Consider exchanging
+ your motherboard.
+
+ 2) You cannot do DMA on the ISA bus to addresses above
+ 16M. Most device drivers under Linux allow the use
+ of bounce buffers which work around this problem. Drivers
+ that don't use bounce buffers will be unstable with
+ more than 16M installed. Drivers that use bounce buffers
+ will be OK, but may have slightly higher overhead.
+
+ 3) There are some motherboards that will not cache above
+ a certain quantity of memory. If you have one of these
+ motherboards, your system will be SLOWER, not faster
+ as you add more memory. Consider exchanging your
+ motherboard.
+
+All of these problems can be addressed with the "mem=XXXM" boot option
+(where XXX is the size of RAM to use in megabytes).
+It can also tell Linux to use less memory than is actually installed.
+If you use "mem=" on a machine with PCI, consider using "memmap=" to avoid
+physical address space collisions.
+
+See the documentation of your boot loader (LILO, loadlin, etc.) about
+how to pass options to the kernel.
+
+There are other memory problems which Linux cannot deal with. Random
+corruption of memory is usually a sign of serious hardware trouble.
+Try:
+
+ * Reducing memory settings in the BIOS to the most conservative
+ timings.
+
+ * Adding a cooling fan.
+
+ * Not overclocking your CPU.
+
+ * Having the memory tested in a memory tester or exchanged
+ with the vendor. Consider testing it with memtest86 yourself.
+
+ * Exchanging your CPU, cache, or motherboard for one that works.
+
+ * Disabling the cache from the BIOS.
+
+ * Try passing the "mem=4M" option to the kernel to limit
+ Linux to using a very small amount of memory. Use "memmap="-option
+ together with "mem=" on systems with PCI to avoid physical address
+ space collisions.
+
+
+Other tricks:
+
+ * Try passing the "no-387" option to the kernel to ignore
+ a buggy FPU.
+
+ * Try passing the "no-hlt" option to disable the potentially
+ buggy HLT instruction in your CPU.