Re: passing "mem=???" to the kernel

[Frank Zimmermann <F.Zimmermann@bham.ac.uk>]

Noah Meyerhans wrote:

> When is it necessary to pass the "mem" parameter to the kernel?  I was
> under the impression that it should no longer be necessary; that newer
> kernels would always find whatever memory was available.  However, I
> recently doubled the RAM on one of my systems (from 128 to 256 MB) but
> the new RAM is not found.  I've never really seen a good explanation of
> why the kernel is not always able to find all the RAM, or under what
> circumstances it happens.  I have several other machines contain from
> 256 to 1024 MB RAM, and they see all the RAM just fine.
>
> noah

This has something to do with the BIOS. I don't know the details but I'm sure there is a detailed explanation somwere in the web (sorry but I don't have a clue where to look for).

Maybe a search on www.kernel.org will give you further details.
But AFAIK this problem should only occur with RAM above 64 MB. So if 
it worked with 128 it definitely should do with 256 MB. Are you 
shure there is no hardware failure or does the kernel detect your 
RAM with the mem parameter?

	Frank