R610 + Debian Lenny 32-bit bigmem kernel => incorrect 3.5GB memory limit

[Stephen Dowdy]

Followup...

There is a new BIOS release 1.1.4 for the R610 which fixes the
issues listed here.

Stephen Dowdy wrote, On 05/18/2009 11:39 AM:
> We have a couple R610s which are currently running Debian Lenny
> 32-bit bigmem (PAE enabled) kernels.  They have 8GB of RAM, but
> the kernel, with PAE enabled, is only showing 3.5GB.
> 
> (we have yet to successfully get Debian Lenny AMD64 FAI to install
> these systems. They hang during the network install. (not sure yet
> if this is still a bnx2 issue, but i think we've addressed that in
> the FAI setup)

Lenny's stock 2.6.26-2-amd64 kernel now successfully runs on the R610
with the new BIOS.

> (btw, we're also having issues with Debian Lenny amd64 with stock
> 2.6.26 kernel installing on the Precision T3500 -- "nobody cared"
> Interrupt processing failures cause the system to fail -- though a
> handbuilt 2.6.29 installed kernel seems to work fine there, so
> we're definitely having issues with 11Gen/Nehalem Dell h/w -- sigh)

BTW, This problem magically cured itself.  It may have been a board that
was improperly seated in shipping from Dell.

> As you can see, while the system has 8GB of physical memory
> installed, the kernel is only showing 3.5GB.
> 
> 'dmesg' indicates the problem:
> 
> [    0.000000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
> [    0.000000] Ooops! Too many entries in the memory map!
> (many repeats of this line, which appear to come from e820.c BIOS query)

BIOS 1.1.4 fixes the e820 mapping failure, which gives us all 8GB access.
(the fallback e801 routine seems to only support mapping to 3.5GB)

> [    0.000000]  BIOS-e801: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable)
> [    0.000000]  BIOS-e801: 0000000000100000 - 00000000cf690000 (usable)

--stephen
-- 
Stephen Dowdy  -  Systems Administrator  -  NCAR/RAL
303.497.2869   -  sdowdy at ucar.edu        -  http://www.ral.ucar.edu/~sdowdy/