Intel se7230NH1-E, 6gb memory not working on FreeBSD 6.0

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 01:58:59PM -0700, mailinglists at net-virtual.com wrote:
> I am having a very hard time getting an Intel se7230NH1-E motherboard with
> 6gb of memory to work.  I keep getting two messages about "Too many holes
> in the physical address space, giving up".
> 
> I'm not sure what the BIOS is (it seems to be OEMed to Intel), but with
> the menu structure I'd have to throw a dart at AMI BIOS.
> 
> I've scanned the newsgroups/message boards for issues surrounding this and
> most suggest that there is a BIOS setting that can be tweaked to make
> things come together.  However, I just don't see any of those options -
> the only thing there with respect to memory involves memory timing.
> 
> Other posts have talked about unlocking "hidden menus" in the BIOS (I'll
> save my tirade on hiding BIOS menu options for another day - but whoever
> did this should be ashamed of yourself).  Alas, none of these have given
> me any luck.
> 
> So, with that in mind... Anyone have any ideas on how I can get this to
> recognize the 6gb of memory we have installed on the motherboard?

Based on what I understand of Intel x86 architecture, to address more
than 4GB of memory space, you have to use Intel's PAE feature.  I
don't think the FreeBSD kernels are built with PAE enabled.  This
might explain why the kernel states there's too many memory holes.

I'd recommend either 1) disabling PAE (Physical Address Extensions)
in the BIOS if possible, or 2) removing some RAM from the system,
getting FreeBSD installed + upgraded to 6.2, building a kernel that
has PAE enabled and then putting the extra RAM back in.

Any other administrators have tips/comments?

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                 jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                        http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                   Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.               PGP: 4BD6C0CB |