Re: 16 MB -> 32 MB, a memory problem resolved!
David A Willmore (willmore@cig.mot.com)
Thu, 18 Apr 1996 13:03:47 -0500
On Apr 16, 12:49pm, Andrew E. Mileski wrote:
> Subject: Re: 16 MB -> 32 MB, a memory problem resolved!
> > This means that when Linux uses the last 384kB, it's not there.
>
> 32M-384k is _NORMAL_ and the point I was trying to make.
> The 384k is reserved by the motherboard, and is damned near
> impossible to access (it varies from board to board).
> It is used for stuff like caching the BIOS and VGA ROMs
> so that it doesn't go completely to waste. If you disable
> caching you _still_ don't get the memory back either.
On several 486 generation motherboards that I have used, you get the 384K back
if you disable all forms of shadowing--normally the VGA BIOS shadow. This will
slow down MSDOS display performance greatly, but will not effect Linux. If
it's worth it to you, go ahead and try it. Someone has mentioned that MB's
won't do this is you have > 16M of memory. I don't have that much, so I cannot
comment.
Cheers,
David