We have AMD dual Opteron hardware with AMD 8131+8111 chipsets attached. Using LinuxBIOS, we have a slight problem, that APPEARS to be related to the last 64Kbytes of RAM. Our kboot based environment, running in 32 bit instruction set, seems to randomly crash, and the implicated area of memory is this last 64KB.
When we run a commercial BIOS on nearly identical hardware, we see that that BIOS has created in the E820 table an ACPI Non-Volatile-Storage area covering this last 64KB. LinuxBIOS is NOT doing that; LinuxBIOS is treating all of the space as simple USABLE space.
In trying to figure this out, we have used the AMD HDT tool to read the last 64KB. We (SOMETIMES) the system crashes when we read this area using HDT.
Can someone please explain what this area is for and why it's strange to read even using a hardware debugging tool? Is it REALLY in use for the ACPI NVS, and can we simply tell Linux to ignore it (map it out) by creating an entry in E820 table so it won't be used (we don't use ACPI suspend/resume)?
Thanks very much for any information.
Alan Mimms, Senior Architect F5 Networks, Inc. Spokane Development Center 1322 North Whitman Lane Liberty Lake, Washington 99019
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