RAM Upgrade Question[Solved]

AmigaOne X1000 platform specific issues.
Post Reply
User avatar
jdupuis
Posts: 223
Joined: Sat May 09, 2015 7:19 am
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana USA

RAM Upgrade Question[Solved]

Post by jdupuis »

Hello,

I wanted to upgrade my RAM. I bought 4 ea. Crucial DDR2 6400 2 GB modules (CT25664AA800.M16FE). I populated all four memory slots. Everthing was fine until I tried reinstalling AOS4.1FE on my own Hard Drive. Any software triggered restart would cause my X1000 to go into a boot cycle. Strange and frustrating. I then removed the outer modules on both sides reducing down to 4 GB and everything returned to normal. The only real issue I encountered was that my CF Card had unreadable blocks. So I removed it and used my Mac to write zero's across and formatted it to MBR MS-DOS. I turned my CF Card into a SWAP to get it out of sight so it is of more use to me. Anyway. I am not quite understanding why 8 GB seemed to cause such an issue. Why would that have triggered the booting cycle? Cycle would not stop until I pressed and held power button. Maybe I missed changing a setting? I shouldn't have to. Maybe one of you might lend some understanding to this riddle. Thanks!

Cheers!!
Last edited by jdupuis on Wed Jan 13, 2016 12:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
C= A500 2 megs RAM with A590 w/40 MB SCSI HD and Workbench 1.3
C= A3000 25 MHz with Workbench 3.1
AmigaOne X1000 4 GB RAM, XFX Radeon HD 6670 1GB GDDR5 GPU and AmigaOS 4.1 FE/Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS/Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS
Sam460ex 2GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM, XFX Radeon HD 5450 2GB GDDR3 GPU, 3114 SATA Raid, ENVY24HT sound card and AmigaOS 4.1 FE
User avatar
tonyw
AmigaOS Core Developer
AmigaOS Core Developer
Posts: 1479
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:36 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: RAM Upgrade Question

Post by tonyw »

OS4 does not support more than 2 GB of memory at present. If you plug 4 GB into an X1000, the CFE firmware will tell OS4's kernel that you have 2 GB, but more than that will confuse everything. With 4 GB I seem to remember that all is not well, but I can't remember why not.

Until we convert the OS to support more than 2 GB, I would suggest that you restrict yourself to 2 GB.
cheers
tony
User avatar
jdupuis
Posts: 223
Joined: Sat May 09, 2015 7:19 am
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana USA

Re: RAM Upgrade Question

Post by jdupuis »

tonyw wrote:OS4 does not support more than 2 GB of memory at present. If you plug 4 GB into an X1000, the CFE firmware will tell OS4's kernel that you have 2 GB, but more than that will confuse everything. With 4 GB I seem to remember that all is not well, but I can't remember why not.

Until we convert the OS to support more than 2 GB, I would suggest that you restrict yourself to 2 GB.
Thank you. My system seems to be running fine. "CFE> printenv" reports a total of 4096, however, in the shell "avail" reports Installed: 2,147,483,648. I have accomplished two installs (one for backup) and all went well. All the utitlities I use are running well.
When I populated all memory slots is when AOS4.1 and CFE went crazy with 8192. Of course, the "bad blocks" CF Card didn't help. Didn't find that until I pulled hair number 1,000,321 off of my head. All "seems" okay now with 4096.
If need be, is there a way to limit without opening up and doing it physically?


Thanks Tony,
Cheers!
C= A500 2 megs RAM with A590 w/40 MB SCSI HD and Workbench 1.3
C= A3000 25 MHz with Workbench 3.1
AmigaOne X1000 4 GB RAM, XFX Radeon HD 6670 1GB GDDR5 GPU and AmigaOS 4.1 FE/Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS/Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS
Sam460ex 2GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM, XFX Radeon HD 5450 2GB GDDR3 GPU, 3114 SATA Raid, ENVY24HT sound card and AmigaOS 4.1 FE
User avatar
jdupuis
Posts: 223
Joined: Sat May 09, 2015 7:19 am
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana USA

Re: RAM Upgrade Question[Solved]

Post by jdupuis »

Hello!

My x1000 remains in First Contact settings until further AOS support for more than 2 GB of RAM.

Cheers!!
C= A500 2 megs RAM with A590 w/40 MB SCSI HD and Workbench 1.3
C= A3000 25 MHz with Workbench 3.1
AmigaOne X1000 4 GB RAM, XFX Radeon HD 6670 1GB GDDR5 GPU and AmigaOS 4.1 FE/Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS/Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS
Sam460ex 2GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM, XFX Radeon HD 5450 2GB GDDR3 GPU, 3114 SATA Raid, ENVY24HT sound card and AmigaOS 4.1 FE
User avatar
tonyw
AmigaOS Core Developer
AmigaOS Core Developer
Posts: 1479
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:36 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: RAM Upgrade Question[Solved]

Post by tonyw »

If you open a Shell and type "nvgetvar", you will see all the FLASH RAM settings. Amongst those settings is: "CFE_MEMORYSIZE=2048".

I believe that is the value that limits the amount of RAM that is enabled by the CFE. If you are running Linux and want to use more than 2 GB, you would have to change that line (as I understand it).
cheers
tony
User avatar
jdupuis
Posts: 223
Joined: Sat May 09, 2015 7:19 am
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana USA

Re: RAM Upgrade Question[Solved]

Post by jdupuis »

tonyw wrote:If you open a Shell and type "nvgetvar", you will see all the FLASH RAM settings. Amongst those settings is: "CFE_MEMORYSIZE=2048".

I believe that is the value that limits the amount of RAM that is enabled by the CFE. If you are running Linux and want to use more than 2 GB, you would have to change that line (as I understand it).
Thank you Tony!

I have decided to stick with AOS. I have an R7 250x GPU which gives great performance under AOS. Awaiting an Ubuntu solution for the Radeon R7 250x GPU before another attempt of Linux. Thanks for the NVGetVar tip for Linux. I was wondering why Linux was only showing 1.9 GB available when I had it installed as I was trying out the Radeon 6670 card. 6670 vs. R7 250x performance under AOS was a no brainer for me. Thanks again!

Cheers!!
John
C= A500 2 megs RAM with A590 w/40 MB SCSI HD and Workbench 1.3
C= A3000 25 MHz with Workbench 3.1
AmigaOne X1000 4 GB RAM, XFX Radeon HD 6670 1GB GDDR5 GPU and AmigaOS 4.1 FE/Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS/Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS
Sam460ex 2GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM, XFX Radeon HD 5450 2GB GDDR3 GPU, 3114 SATA Raid, ENVY24HT sound card and AmigaOS 4.1 FE
Post Reply