more RAM + faster disk -> slower box?!

[Ian Pallfreeman]

> Plugging in more than 512M of memory was overloading the physical
> parameters of the memory bus, registered memory would allow the loading to
> go higher.
>
> It doesn't directly explain the FreeBSD behaviour that followed and it has
> nothing whatsoever to do with cacheing.

FWIW, it was the second set of 3*256MB DIMMs. I didn't bother to test the
first set because I was in a hurry, so after swapping them I ran memtest-86
to make sure they were OK. No errors, but very, very slow. 

I'm not entirely sure what I'm saying here, but I feel the need to assert
that FreeBSD definitely isn't to blame. 

Time to stop for the day, methinks. 

Ian.