Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (
More info?)
have you tried xp 64bit?
"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
news:nospam-1903051922190001@192.168.1.178...
> In article <jako31lsof9mmi0s9lnok22ljj6s07ccho@4ax.com>, Blonks
> <Blonkster@_NOSTINKINSPAM_ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>> Even though the board claims to support 4Gb of RAM is won't take 4 x
>> 1GB sticks. This seems to be cuased by the ram not being buffered and
>> hence the board cannot support the power requirements. There is a
>> compatibility table on the Asus page that shows which dimms are
>> supported and 4 x 1Gb shows non are supported.
>>
>> Has anybody managed to get such a setup working i.e. 4Gb of RAM, with
>> this or any other modern non-server board? I wanted to use all the
>> memory for running multiple Vmware machines.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Ian
>
> Maybe you put registered sticks in the board, and the board beeped ?
> It takes unbuffered DIMMs.
>
> The OP here tried 4x1GB. With two PCI-E video cards, he got 2.25GB
> available, and with one PCI-E video card, he got 2.75GB. This implies
> that the A8N-SLI is just about the worst desktop board you could
> select for a memory hungry application. The lost memory makes
> way for necessary I/O space (PCI-E video cards, PCI-E plugin cards,
> PCI bus cards).
>
>
http://groups.google.ca/groups?threadm=ct2pfu%24m2m%241%40ikaria.belnet.be
>
> This is an example of a desktop board that claims to support
> 8GB.
>
> "SK8N Specification Summary
> Socket 940 for AMD Opteron processor
> NVIDIA nForce 3 Pro150
> Dual-Channel memory architecture
> Supports PC2700/PC2100/PC1600 ECC DDR SDRAM
> Registered DIMMs
> 4 x 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets for up to 8GB memory"
>
> The SK8N does support memory hoisting, as noted here. If you have
> 8GB of memory, what memory hoisting does, is map it as 3GB down
> low, leaves a gap between 3GB and 4GB, then puts the remaining
> 5GB above the 4GB mark. So, one chunk of 3GB, one chunk of 5GB,
> and via some mapping, it looks like a contiguous virtual 8GB
> chunk to the system. The hole is then used for the I/O space.
> Apparently, with the right version of BIOS, the SK8N supports
> this function, which tells you support for this was an
> afterthought at Asus.
>
>
http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=1LoW8-5I9-25%40gated-at.bofh.it
>
> What is strange, is if I look at the 26094 document at AMD, I
> get the impression that any athlon64/opteron should support
> the memory hoisting function. So, maybe this is purely a
> BIOS limitation, in which case complaining to Asus might
> eventually get it fixed. (Due to AMD's idea of modular
> documentation, when a feature is seen in their documentation,
> you have no way of knowing whether the feature works on
> S754, S939, S940, Opteron etc. Truly a pathetic way to
> document hardware.)
>
>
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/26094.PDF
>
> The memory hoisting function is not without side effects. The
> AMD document states that certain memory optimizations are
> disabled, so the memory bandwidth might drop a bit. Also, you
> need OS and application support for this kind of thing, so
> perhaps a server style OS, plus a version of VMware intended to
> run on server type machines, would be required. I don't know
> anything about that stuff.
>
> Chances are, if a motherboard supports Opteron processors, it
> will do a good job in the memory arena. Unless you can find a
> server motherboard manufacturer that dabbles in desktops, and
> does a good job on all their BIOS.
>
> Another tidbit:
>
http://groups.google.ca/groups?threadm=cmb7sa%24ohu%241%40rena.mat.uc.pt
>
> I tried downloading a Tyan desktop (S2865) manual, hoping that
> maybe they implement memory hoisting, but the manual is so bad,
> I cannot tell if this function is implemented or not. They have
> an entry called "Bottom of 32-bit[31:24] IO[E0]" and another
> called "S/W memory hole Romapping", and there is zero info on
> what they do.
>
> Good luck in your quest,
>
> Paul
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