*** Please type your report below this line ***

When starting memtest86+ from grub2, the following error message is
displayed:

error: too small lower memory (0x99100 > 0x96000)

My MB is ASUS P5K PRO with 4 GByte memory.

The memory map as present in the Linux dmesg file is as follows:

BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 0000000000096000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000096000 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000e4000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 00000000cff80000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000cff80000 - 00000000cff8e000 (ACPI data)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000cff8e000 - 00000000cffe0000 (ACPI NVS)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000cffe0000 - 00000000d0000000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000fff00000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000100000000 - 0000000130000000 (usable)

Hi Sam,

There must be something particular on this machine.  I could check
that the package works from grub2 on a 4GB Dell laptop.

It's a duplicate of #319837. The patch proposed there should work. It
reallocates Memtest86+ from 0x10000 (64k) to 0x100000 (1M). I never included
it because I consider this as an Asus BIOS bug (only 614KB of total base
memory available at boot time) and I don't want to jeopardize the stability
with other BIOS that respect the standards. Another solution may be to
allocate memory from 0x8000 (32K) instead of 0x10000 (64K). This way, it
should fit in the tiny space allowed by those Asus BIOS WITHOUT having to
change the loading scheme on grub.

I will consider adding this on 4.01 but I need some additionnal testing to
be sure it doesn't broke everything

Hi Sam,

There must be something particular on this machine.  I could check
that the package works from grub2 on a 4GB Dell laptop.

Could you check with those binaries :

http://www.memtest.org/download/beta/401b1/

I changed the loading area from 64KB to 32KB.

Samuel DEMEULEMEESTER wrote:
Thanks for your attention to this problem.

I heve copied the new memtest.bin to /boot/ and used the grub interactive
mode to change the filename in the menu entry to memtest.bin and than
boot that entry.

Unfortunately, the same error occurs...

I have also tested on my HP6730b laptop, and there it works without
problems.

I have put memtest.bin on an SD card and made an attempt to boot it...
This results in an endless stream of messages, every second a line with
just 8000 being printed...


If you want me to do some more testing, please explain what you want me
to do.

Regards,
    Matthijs Melchior.

Does Memtest86+ works on your system with the traditional boot CD process ?

Samuel DEMEULEMEESTER wrote:
Good idea to test like this....

Ubuntu 9.04 32bit desktop CD
    Uses memtest86+ v2.11      works OK

Knoppicillin 7 DVD
    Uses memtest86+ v2.10      works OK

they both do not use grub2,
I expect them to use syslinux, but I have not seen the syslinux header
on their menu screens.

Regards,
    Matthijs Melchior.

Hi

I have almost same problem here. Mainboard is Gigabyte 790XTA-UD4. Got this
error with 4GB and with 8GB memory.
Error looks like following:

memtest86+ too small lower memory (0x99100 > 0x98400)

[    0.000000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 0000000000098400 (usable)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000000098400 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 00000000cfd81000 (usable)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000cfde0000 - 00000000cfde3000 (ACPI NVS)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000cfde3000 - 00000000cfdf0000 (ACPI data)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000cfdf0000 - 00000000cfe00000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000e0000000 - 00000000f0000000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000100000000 - 0000000130000000 (usable)


multiboot option does not work also, detecting only 640K of memory, there is
already a bug report about this.

memtest86+ 4.0 from opensuse 11.2 installation dvd works  without problems

memtest86+ 4.10-1.1 --- included in the current debian stable distribution
--- still has the original #319837 (Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 06:03:06 UTC) 
problem, now numbered as #549429 (Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2009 11:06:02 UTC).

Paolo Ornati <ornati@fastwebnet.it> described on Mon, 1 Jan 2007, that
this is not really a bug of the free softwares, but some BIOS makers break
the rule, that reserverd area for BIOS is not allowed to start BELOW
09A000.

In the last 6 years it turned out that more and more motherboards are
delivered by a BIOS braking the standard, ... the very popular ASUS
appears to be a main source for this kind of motherboards.

On the other hand, ASUS is the only which provides BIOS support for ECC
memory modules in almost all of their motherboards.

The result in low end desktop boxes: either I can use ECC memory modules,
or I can use memtest86+.

In my case, tho motherboard is ASUS am3 M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 with 16GB ECC
memory and an AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Processor.

But reading the diverse communications in the last 6 years, it does not
really matter.

The only interesting factor is, that my situations is the USUAL situation:

[    0.000000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 0000000000098000 (usable)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000000098000 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000000e4000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 00000000dfe90000 (usable)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000dfe90000 - 00000000dfea8000 (ACPI data)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000dfea8000 - 00000000dfed0000 (ACPI NVS)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000dfed0000 - 00000000dff00000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000ffe00000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000100000000 - 0000000420000000 (usable)
[    0.000000] DMI present.
[    0.000000] AMI BIOS detected: BIOS may corrupt low RAM, working around it.

Namely, 0000000000098000 << 000000000009a000, that is all what is relevant.

Tanks,
 	Peter.

In my case the actual error message is:

         error: too small lower memory ( 0x99100 > 0x98000 )

The motherboard is: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3

The BIOS is: version 2101 dated 2011-apr-08

The EC BIOS is: MBECB-0011

The version of memtest86+ is the current one included in the stable debian

                              4.10-1.1

Hi everyone

Same happens here on a Fujitsu-Siemens Celsius M460 system having 8GB
of RAM and running Debian squeeze (stable) on amd64.

There is one small difference, note 95000 instead of 96000:

error: too small lower memory (0x99100 > 0x95000).

[    0.000000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 0000000000095000 (usable)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000000095000 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000000d6000 - 00000000000d8000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000000e4000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 00000000bfed0000 (usable)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000bfed0000 - 00000000bfed8000 (ACPI data)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000bfed8000 - 00000000bfedb000 (ACPI NVS)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000bfedb000 - 00000000c0000000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000f8000000 - 00000000fc000000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec10000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 00000000ffb00000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
[    0.000000]  BIOS-e820: 0000000100000000 - 0000000240000000 (usable)

What can I do to test my RAM anyway?

Thanks
Matthias

Hi, this should be solved in 5.31b+dfsg-1 if I remember good.

Can someone tell me if this issue still reproducible on latest version
of memtest86+ please? (5.31b+dfsg-4)