From: chuckm@canada.hp.com (Chuck Munro) Subject: Re: Are any SIMMs cheap these day$ ? Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 23:25:21 GMT
Fachschaft E-Technik TUM (fset@guug.de) wrote:
> As most *nixes use the bios only to boot, which doesn't happen quite so often
> on *nix systems, and disable it afterward, the kernel can implement it's own
> mechanism for reacting on the parity error. So a new BIOS is absolutely
> unnecessary.
Does this mean that my machine is ignoring parity problems under Linux, or
does the BIOS simply turn the checker on and let the O/S trap a parity
condition?
I decided to read my CPU's (skimpy) manual more carefully (to try and
avoid more foot-in-mouth syndrome :-), and I cannot find anything
enlightening about the parity-checking scheme. I see control register
bits for the OPTi chipset which refer to parity checking, and I see a
tiny mention of a BIOS parity-checking routine, but nowhere do I see
references to a parity-error interrupt which the O/S could trap. If
the BIOS is responsible for parity checking, is every memory parity bit
going to waste under Linux?
Sorry, I don't have Linux source here to check this out myself, but
I'd love to know.
Chuck.