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.
v: 509-343-3524 f: 509-343-3501