System lockup problem with 7G of memory and PAE kernel - FC7

[Steve Siegfried]

Cokey wrote:
> 
> I have an older dual processor server with 4 Gig of memory that has been 
> running FC5 since it was released.  I tried to upgraded to 7 Gig of 
> memory under FC5 but the system locked up in the init phase regardless 
> of what I did. I didn't chase the problem because I intended to upgrade
> the OS.
> 
> Recently I did upgrade the OS to F 7 and tried the changing the memory 
> to 7 Gig again.  Using the standard i686 kernel, it boots and runs 
> correctly, but warns that only 4 Gig of memory will be used and that the 
> PAE kernel was necessary to use the full 7 Gig.
> 
> I installed the 2.6.22.4-65.fc7PAE kernel and the system boots 
> correctly, but stops at the init phase.  The system is not locked up as
> it will respond to C-A-Del and reboot.  The output at the time of lock 
> up looks like this:
> 
> Switching to new root and running Init
> Umounting old 	/dev
> 		/proc
> 		/sys
> exec of init (/sbin/init) failed accessing a corrupted shared library
> request_module: runaway loop modprobe binfmt-0397 (repeated 5 times)
> 
> I ran the memory test on the system for 8 hours or so and it found  and 
> tested all 7 Gig.  Also I have booted this system with M$ Advanced 
> server and it finds/uses all 7 Gig so I don't think there's anything 
> wrong with the hardware.
> 
> Rebooting with the original i686 kernel works correctly.
> 
> Any ideas or suggestions welcome.
> 

Have you verified that your kernel supports that much memory?  As I
recall, there's a 2GB (or possibly 4GB) cut-off for "vanilla" kernels and
if you want to run on a system with more memory than the cut-off allows,
you'll need to set the "really large memory" option in the kernel's
config file and then rebuild the kernel (or download the "large memory
kernel" rpm from you usual RPM supplier).

Hope this helps'idly,

-S