[LinuxBIOS] row_offset

[popkonserve]

> Corey,
> I am a little confused about the significance of the row_offset in the  
> i82810 raminit.c.
> 
> 1. What do you mean by row? Each row of DRAM technologies (Side) or  
> each row of DIMM (Socket)?? Two different things.

"GMCH supports 4 physical rows of system memory in 2 DIMMs. The width of 
a row is 64 bits. The DRAM Row Population Register defines the 
population of each Side of each DIMM." - from Intel® 82810/82810-DC100 
(GMCH)

a row in the intel datasheets is always one side of a memory module. one 
side means: there are single-sided dimms and double sided dimms. you 
have to configure each side of the memory module in order to make it 
work correctly. please take a look at my previous post: "Intel DRB HOWTO 
.. a 1st draft.". i tried to explain how those registers work..on the 
Intel 430FX. they work the same on every other (intel) chipset, too.

> /* Set the row offset, in KBytes (should this be
>   * Kbits?). Note that this offset is the start of the
>   * next row.
>   */
> row_offset = (dimm_size * 4 * 1024);
> 
> 2. If this the start of the next row should it be row_offset +1 Kilobyte??

As Corey already stated: a memory region starts at 0 and ends at 
regionsize-1. the next memory region starts at regionsize then. example: 
1MB = 1*1024*1024 = 1048576 (decimal) = 100000h. the 1MB region would 
start at 0 and end at 100000h-1 = 0FFFFFh. take a look at the intel 
datasheet mentioned above, there is a memory map at page 72.

just if someone was wondering: i can provide a sniplet of code that 
calculates the start address of the current region from the contents of 
the Intel row offset register for the previous row.

btw. converting between kilobytes and kilobits is just a simple left 
shift by 3 digits.

i'll restart working on more memory init functions in mid september. my 
implementation will work without reading any spd data and detect the 
size of a memory module just by reading/writing data. when i'm done with 
the socket 7 chipsets, i'll continue with the slot1/s370 ones..hope it 
won't take too long.