available memory

From: Stan Huhman#HuhmanJohn Deere EW <huhman_at_ee.deere.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 14:33:30 -0500

I've been doing benchmarks on an alphastation 600 5/250 and I owe the group a
summary on a previous question I posed. That summmary will be forthcoming
shortly as we have essentially wrapped up our study. I just noticed something
in uerf that I have no explanation for, and I hoped once again the vast
accumulated knowledge of this group might enlighten me. The system is
configured with 256 MB of physical memory. On boot, the startup event
has two drasticly different reports of available memory, looking back at all
the startup events, roughly half show about 235 MB, the other half show about
12 MB. I'm really curious what causes this and what it means in terms of
system performance. Sample records of each follow:


********************************* ENTRY 1. *********************************

----- EVENT INFORMATION -----

EVENT CLASS OPERATIONAL EVENT
OS EVENT TYPE 300. SYSTEM STARTUP
SEQUENCE NUMBER 0.
OPERATING SYSTEM DEC OSF/1
OCCURRED/LOGGED ON Tue Aug 1 09:37:34 1995
OCCURRED ON SYSTEM wdee9
SYSTEM ID x0005000F
SYSTYPE x00000000
MESSAGE LK411 keyboard, language English
                                         _(American)
                                         
                                        Alpha boot: available memory from
                                         _0xc3a000 to 0xff16000
                                        DEC OSF/1 T3.2B-2 (Rev. 214.30); Wed
                                         _Jun 28 08:44:40 CDT 1995
                                        physical memory = 256.00 megabytes.
*** note available memory *** --------> available memory = 235.03 megabytes.
                                        using 975 buffers containing 7.61
                                         _megabytes of memory
                                        Firmware revision: 3.7
                                        PALcode: OSF version 1.17
                                        Digital AlphaStation 600 5/266
                                        Mem_size = 266264576, consmem = 265
                                        pci0 at nexus
                                        tga0 at pci0
                                        tga0: depth 32, map size 32MB,
                                         _1280x1024
                                        pci256 at pci0
                                        tu0: DECchip 21040-AA: Revision: 2.3
                                        tu0 at pci256
                                        tu0: DEC TULIP Ethernet Interface,
                                         _hardware address: 08-00-2B-E5-93-41
                                        tu0: selecting 10BaseT port
                                        isp0 at pci256 slot 1
                                        isp0: QLOGIC ISP1020
                                        isp0: nvram contents invalid, using
                                         _default parameters
                                        isp0: Firmware revision 1.27 (loaded
                                         _by console)
                                        scsi0 at isp0
                                        rz0 at scsi0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0 (DEC
                                         _ RZ28 (C) DEC 442E)
                                        rz1 at scsi0 bus 0 target 1 lun 0
                                         _(SEAGATE ST15230N 0168)
                                        rz2 at scsi0 bus 0 target 2 lun 0
                                         _(SEAGATE ST15230N 0168)
                                        rz5 at scsi0 bus 0 target 5 lun 0 (DEC
                                         _ RRD43 (C) DEC 1084)
                                        tz3 at scsi0 bus 0 target 3 lun 0 (DEC
                                         _ TLZ07 (C)DEC 4BE0)
                                        isp1 at pci256 slot 2
                                        isp1: QLOGIC ISP1020
                                        isp1: nvram contents invalid, using
                                         _default parameters
                                        isp1: Firmware revision 1.27 (loaded
                                         _by console)
                                        scsi1 at isp1
                                        eisa0 at pci0
                                        ace0 at eisa0
                                        ace1 at eisa0
                                        lp0 at eisa0
                                        fdi0 at eisa0
                                        fd0 at fdi0 unit 0
                                        gpc0 at eisa0
                                        lvm0: configured.
                                        lvm1: configured.
                                        dli: configured
                                        SuperLAT. Copyright 1993 Meridian
                                         _Technology Corp. All rights
                                         _reserved.

********************************* ENTRY 3. *********************************

----- EVENT INFORMATION -----

EVENT CLASS OPERATIONAL EVENT
OS EVENT TYPE 300. SYSTEM STARTUP
SEQUENCE NUMBER 0.
OPERATING SYSTEM DEC OSF/1
OCCURRED/LOGGED ON Sun Jul 30 16:18:54 1995
OCCURRED ON SYSTEM wdee9
SYSTEM ID x0005000F
SYSTYPE x00000000
MESSAGE LK411 keyboard, language English
                                         _(American)
                                         
                                        Alpha boot: available memory from
                                         _0xc3a000 to 0xff16000
                                        DEC OSF/1 T3.2B-2 (Rev. 214.30); Wed
                                         _Jun 28 08:44:40 CDT 1995
                                        physical memory = 256.00 megabytes.
                                        available memory = 11.94 megabytes.
                                                          _0xc3a000 to 0xff16000
                                        DEC OSF/1 T3.2B-2 (Rev. 214.30); Wed
                                         _Jun 28 08:44:40 CDT 1995
                                        physical memory = 256.00 megabytes.
*** note available memory *** --------> available memory = 11.94 megabytes.
                                        using 975 buffers containing 7.61
                                         _megabytes of memory
                                        Firmware revision: 3.7
                                        PALcode: OSF version 1.17
                                        Digital AlphaStation 600 5/266
                                        Mem_size = 266264576, consmem = 265
                                        pci0 at nexus
                                        tga0 at pci0
                                        tga0: depth 32, map size 32MB,
                                         _1280x1024
                                        pci256 at pci0
                                        tu0: DECchip 21040-AA: Revision: 2.3
                                        tu0 at pci256
                                        tu0: DEC TULIP Ethernet Interface,
                                         _hardware address: 08-00-2B-E5-93-41
                                        tu0: selecting 10BaseT port
                                        isp0 at pci256 slot 1
                                        isp0: QLOGIC ISP1020
                                        isp0: nvram contents invalid, using
                                         _default parameters
                                        isp0: Firmware revision 1.27 (loaded
                                         _by console)
                                        scsi0 at isp0
                                        rz0 at scsi0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0 (DEC
                    isp0 at pci256 slot 1
                                        isp0: QLOGIC ISP1020
                                        isp0: nvram contents invalid, using
                                         _default parameters
                                        isp0: Firmware revision 1.27 (loaded
                                         _by console)
                                        scsi0 at isp0
                                        rz0 at scsi0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0 (DEC
                                         _ RZ28 (C) DEC 442E)
                                        rz5 at scsi0 bus 0 target 5 lun 0 (DEC
                                         _ RRD43 (C) DEC 1084)
                                        tz3 at scsi0 bus 0 target 3 lun 0 (DEC
                                         _ TLZ07 (C)DEC 4BE0)
                                        isp1 at pci256 slot 2
                                        isp1: QLOGIC ISP1020
                                        isp1: nvram contents invalid, using
                                         _default parameters
                                        isp1: Firmware revision 1.27 (loaded
                                         _by console)
                                        scsi1 at isp1
                                        eisa0 at pci0
                                        ace0 at eisa0
                                        ace1 at eisa0
                                        lp0 at eisa0
                                        fdi0 at eisa0
                                        fd0 at fdi0 unit 0
                                        gpc0 at eisa0
                                        lvm0: configured.
                                        lvm1: configured.
                                        dli: configured
                                        SuperLAT. Copyright 1993 Meridian
                                         _Technology Corp. All rights
                                         _reserved.


Thanks in Advance for your replies.
Stan Huhman
John Deere Engine Works
Waterloo, Iowa
Received on Tue Aug 01 1995 - 21:57:46 NZST

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