Re: [PATCH] trim memory not covered by WB MTRRs

From: Robert Hancock
Date: Thu Jun 07 2007 - 21:58:30 EST


Justin Piszcz wrote:
Note that your boot also mentions this:

[ 106.449661] mtrr: no more MTRRs available

which indicates that things like X may not be able to map the
framebuffer with the 'write-combine' attribute, which will hurt
performance. I've heard reports that turning of 'Intel QST fan
control' in your BIOS settings will prevent all your MTRRs from being
used (improperly, probably another BIOS bug) so that X will perform
well. But if you don't use X on this machine, you don't have to worry
about it. The other option would be to remap your MTRRs by hand to
free one up for X, you can do that by combining the last one or two
entries into a single MTRR using the API described in
Documentation/mtrr.txt before you start X.

Jesse


FYI--

[ 106.449661] mtrr: no more MTRRs available

This has always occurred, even with mem=8832M setting.

Justin.

Yes, it's another consequence of the way your BIOS configured the MTRRs (wastefully, using more of the precious register entries than it needed to, in addition to not covering all of the RAM).

--
Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from hancockr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/

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