BeBox doesn't see all its memory

1

Yeah, I know this isn’t about Haiku, but I want to get some code working on BeOS 5 Pro first, and then I’ll make sure it works on Haiku.

A friend scored me a 133 MHz Revision 6 BeBox at HSC Electronic Supply in Sunnyvale, California. It booted right up, and came with 32 MB installed as four 8 MB SIMMs in the first four slots.

Today, also at HSC, I bought four 32 MB SIMMs, all of them labeled 8x32. But when I install them all into the last four slots, the BeOS only sees a total of 128 MB. I don’t get any complaints about bad memory, and everything seems to work OK - I just don’t see all the RAM I should have. There should be 4 * 8 + 4 * 32 = 160 MB of memory.

Note that BeBox memory must be installed in matched pairs, as the SIMMs have a 32-bit data bus, but the CPUs have a 64-bit data bus.

I’ve tried rearranging the SIMMs, and it seems that whatever sticks are installed in the 4/5 bank are seen as 64 MB, but whatever is installed in the 6/7 bank is only seen as 32 MB. If I take the sticks from 6/7 and put them into 4/5, their size magically doubles to the correct amount.

Is this a problem with my BeBox, or a problem with my memory? If there is a way to make the BeOS see all my memory, I’d appreciate any clues you can give me.

2

Oh hey, are you in the Northern California area?

If so, you should join NorCal-HUG (http://norcal-hug.org) :slight_smile:

Anyhow, I have a dual 66mhz BeBox that i just obtained recently, and I was able to get it to see all the RAM i’ve put in it so far.

Make sure your RAM is 60ns or faster for one, that’s a requirement for proper functionality.

Perhaps in the near future we can meet up… I think several NorCal-HUG members will probably be at the next SuperHappyDevHouse in April - I’ll try to contact you if that happens.

BTW, the BeBox doesn’t run R5 so well IMO :stuck_out_tongue:

3

Yeah, I live in South San Jose. We should meet up for a coffee or a beer sometime.

I didn’t have any luck with the VirtualBox networking. Do you have the sources for the Intel PRO driver? Perhaps I can debug it.

The problem might actually be in VirtualBox though, and not in the driver or the BeOS.

I was getting frequent net_server and Tracker crashes when I first installed BeOS Pro 5, but since upgrading to 5.0.3 I haven’t had any more crashes.

For a while now I’ve been running all of the animated demos, as a way of testing my memory. There haven’t been any crashes or complaints, so I think that what RAM it sees is working OK.

My main project for BeOS and Haiku is Ogg Frog. Its first release will be little more than an audio player, but I plan a series of releases culminating in a product that can do everything iTunes, WinAmp and Windows Media Player can do. But it will be GPL Free Software, and run on lots more platforms.

Ogg Frog is built on the ZooLib C++ Cross-Platform Application Framework. For the next few days I’ll be working on a new ZooLib release. It hasn’t had a tarball release in over five years, because everyone just uses the CVS sources, but I don’t want Ogg Frog to have to depend on a CVS snapshot.

4

You should subscribe to the NorCal-HUG mailing list - whenever we’re gonna get together (usually in the bay area) we post there:

http://www.freelists.org/list/norcal-hug

I actually live up in Grass Valley, so I’m easily 3 hours away from you by car :stuck_out_tongue: - But I drive down your way every once in a while to hang out with other Haiku folks in the area (Jorge Mare, Scott McCreary, Andrew Bachmann, etc.) - I’ll make sure you’re in the loop next time :slight_smile:

They’re actually still in the Haiku repo I believe, or can be found somewhere in the history. For a long time, you could compile them on R5 with:

TARGET_PLATFOR=r5 jam -q ipro1000

which is likely what I had done. I can also dig it up from one of my BeOS machines floating around here if I must.

[quote]The problem might actually be in VirtualBox though, and not in the driver or the BeOS.

I was getting frequent net_server and Tracker crashes when I first installed BeOS Pro 5, but since upgrading to 5.0.3 I haven’t had any more crashes.

For a while now I’ve been running all of the animated demos, as a way of testing my memory. There haven’t been any crashes or complaints, so I think that what RAM it sees is working OK.

My main project for BeOS and Haiku is Ogg Frog. Its first release will be little more than an audio player, but I plan a series of releases culminating in a product that can do everything iTunes, WinAmp and Windows Media Player can do. But it will be GPL Free Software, and run on lots more platforms.

Ogg Frog is built on the ZooLib C++ Cross-Platform Application Framework. For the next few days I’ll be working on a new ZooLib release. It hasn’t had a tarball release in over five years, because everyone just uses the CVS sources, but I don’t want Ogg Frog to have to depend on a CVS snapshot.[/quote]

You’ll probably have an easier time porting it to Haiku than BeOS :slight_smile:

I assume you know about http://ports.haiku-files.org - where various porting guides/instructions for many libraries, etc. have been placed.