On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 10:43:37 +0000 Alan Cox <alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Now I'm trying to install F8/x86_64 on it, and the installer is running > > amazingly slowly. It took about ten minutes before the initial graphical > > Probably wrong memory caching in the BIOS. That's a common cause of those > symptoms. If so boot with mem=2G or be patient and once you've got it > installed take a look at /proc/mtrr and that will show which memory the > system marked as cached. If its wrong then you can tweak the settings > and/or beat up the BIOS vendor You have definitely hit the nail on the head. Booting with mem=2G makes this computer perform like it should. This is an Intel DG33FB motherboard and I downloaded the latest bios, version 0372 dated January 29. Unfortunately, that didn't solve the problem. Booting "normally" runs at the snail's pace that I previously mentioned. Booting with mem=2G works fine, as I said. The contents of /proc/mtrr when this machine is booted with mem=2G are as follows: reg00: base=0x00000000 ( 0MB), size=2048MB: write-back, count=1 reg01: base=0x80000000 (2048MB), size=1024MB: write-back, count=1 reg02: base=0xc0000000 (3072MB), size= 256MB: write-back, count=1 reg03: base=0xcf800000 (3320MB), size= 8MB: uncachable, count=1 reg04: base=0xcf400000 (3316MB), size= 4MB: uncachable, count=1 reg05: base=0x100000000 (4096MB), size= 512MB: write-back, count=1 reg06: base=0x120000000 (4608MB), size= 128MB: write-back, count=1 reg07: base=0xd0000000 (3328MB), size= 256MB: write-combining, count=1 I looked in the bios setup and didn't see anything that obviously appeared to be a method for telling the machine how to handle memory caching. On the other hand, I have no idea what I'm looking for so that setting may be staring me right in the face and I'm not recognizing it. So.... what should my next step be? -- MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Melville Sask ~ http://www.melvilletheatre.com
