too small low memory

[Yedidyah Bar-David]

Hello,

I have a problem with pxegrub:
When loading the kernel, it says "Selected item cannot fit into memory".
displaymem shows there is only about 550KB low memory.

The configuration:
A Pentium II with 160MB RAM, an Intel eepro100 with PXE that loads
pxegrub from the net. It loads a linux bzImage kernel of about 1MB.

Other machines, with almost the same hardware configuration (and
the same software configuration), work well (displaymem shows
639KB).

I also tried to load memtest86 (75KB) and it didn't load, with the
same error (it does work on other machines, though. I think grub
detects it as a linux kernel, because (I think) it "stole" linux's
boot sector). memtest from a floppy just ran for 18 hours and found
no problem (it runs in protected mode, so it only says there is
160MB).

My questions:
1. I looked at the source, and saw it checks for at least 608KB
of low memory. Why is this? If I lower that to, say, 500KB, what
damage can I expect?

2. Any idea why there are only 550KB? I went thouroughly through
the BIOS setup, and couldn't find anything that might cause this
(but there might still be).

I am not subscribed to bug-grub, so please CC: me.

Thanks a lot,

        Didi