A8NSLI Hardware BIOS 4GB remapping problem

[papaHesch]

Just switched back up to 4GB and was wondering if anyone was having a problem with the H/W (Hardware or CPU) 4G remapping option in the bios. The S/W (Software) bios option works but the BIOS and XP64 only post 3GB. With the H/W remapping options the BIOS allows all 4GB to be used but the second I start to boot into XP64 (and I mean literally the first second) the computer reboots. Sent several cases to Asus and got up to level 2 but never got a response. I have a fully stacked rig (SLI 7800GTX, pci-e SCSI RAID controller, X-fi and etc) with an AMD X2 4400 (Toledo) with a revision of JH-E6. With this config the hardware remapping should work with XP64 and was wondering if anyone has had the same problem or knows of a fix.


Thanks, Papa

 

[tcsenter]

pci-e SCSI RAID controller, X-fi and etc

AFAIK, with a 64-bit OS (hardware remap or not) all PCI devices must have 64-bit ready drivers and be capable of dual address cycle (DAC). The SCSI RAID controller is more likely to have 64-bit support than the X-Fi (and any other devices).

Welcome to an early preview of what will happen when we get a 64-bit OS but few hardware devices and other peripherals that support it.

 

[papaHesch]

Fully loaded with 64 bit drivers for everything. No problems with xp64. Works great and have not had any problems. The remapping problem seems to be more of a bios issue. I barely get into the OS boot and the system reboots. I have tried to enable boot logging but it does not get far enough into the kernal boot to log anything. It smells of a motherboard issue but I have tried almost every Bios option I can imagine to get the hardware remapping to work. I am more wondering if anyone else has had a similar issue with an SLI machine with 4GB using the hardware remapping option in the BIOS.

Thanks,
PapaH

 

[tcsenter]

Fully loaded with 64 bit drivers for everything. No problems with xp64. Works great and have not had any problems.

You can't have it both ways. Either you have no problems and everything works, or it doesn't. Which is it?

 

[papaHesch]

tscenter,

The only problem I have is that when the hardware over 4GB memory hole remapping option (in the bios) is enabled, the OS will reboot the second that it is started. I can use the software memory remapping option in the BIOS and see 3GB vs the 4GB when hardware remapping (at least the BIOS is telling me it usable). I assume this is not a driver issue because when I enable boot logging (by hitting f8 at boot); XP64 does not even get a chance to write to the log before it reboots. Something weird that I can not figure out. I guess it could be the drivers messing with the 4G remapping but they work fine in every other situation. Any ideas?

papah

 

[papaHesch]

Well the new 1011-005 Beta Bios for the a8n-sli Premium board fixed the problem for anyone out there trying to get 4GB of memory to work on this board with XP64. Of course this is causing a problem with XP32 but I do not care that much. For some reason now the problem has switched to XP32.

Papah

 

[quixoticduck]

Well the new 1011-005 Beta Bios for the a8n-sli Premium board fixed the problem for anyone out there trying to get 4GB of memory to work on this board with XP64. Of course this is causing a problem with XP32 but I do not care that much. For some reason now the problem has switched to XP32.

Papah

Hmm, I will look into this but I really hope that there is a solution which doesn't involve updating the BIOS. >.< I just keep seeing about people bricking their computers and with it being so old I can't exactly send it back!

 

[MMAMUK]

Hmm, I will look into this but I really hope that there is a solution which doesn't involve updating the BIOS. >.< I just keep seeing about people bricking their computers and with it being so old I can't exactly send it back!

I have an A8N SLI-Deluxe motherboard, and I have installed 4x1GB Mushkin SDRAM DDR400 memory sticks. The BIOS recognises them as 4GB SDRAM. I have Windows 7 Ultimate N 64-bit installed. In windows the Resource Monitor shows Total Physical Memory used as 3237 MB and 769 MB as Hardware Reserved.

I have H/W and S/W mapping enabled in the BIOS.

From reading across various online forums it appears that the problem is NF4 chipset related.
And that neither the BIOS nor drivers nor the operating system will resolve the issue. At the time chipset was installed they did not envisage 4GB will be used. So anything above 3GB was set aside for non-physical use.

This is the conclusion I've come to date. I hope I'm wrong and that is quite possible to use all 4GB as physical memory. So far it has alluded me.