rcw@qetzal.UUCP (Robert C. White) (06/20/88)
I am using version 1.30 of Dos Merge on my 286. I find that I still (after six months) cannot run the software with my machine running at 10 mhz. Does anyone have any bright ideas? Typically, the machine runs ok for five or ten minutes, then comes crashing down with a general protection/double panic. Everything works fine at 6 mhz, but the machine is a real dog. Configuration: Genoa EGA card with 256k of memory Phoenix Bios, Release 3.01. Everex extended memory card No name serial ports (2). IMS/286 Box. (Intelligent Micro Systems). This other stuff is attached to the machine, but I experienced the same problem before they were added: Everex 60 meg cartridge tape backup (QIC-36) IRQ5,DMA3 Overland Data Qualstar Reel Tape IRQ7,DMA1 Hitachi CD-ROM Drive (Anyone have a uport driver for this?) The only thing I noticed that was wierd about this machine is that I had to put exactly 640k of 120-ns ram chips on the motherboard. There are 512k of 256k drams and 128k of 64k drams. All chips are rated at 120ns. When I tried to put 1 megabyte on the motherboard, all kinds of memory errors would result. I'd really appreciate some input on this, particularly if there is a later release of Dos-Merge available. As far as I can tell, I've followed the release notes to a tee. Thanks in Advance, -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you think the 80286 is brain } Robert White { damaged, you ought to check out the } ihnp4!upba!qetzal!rcw { Colorado State Legislature - me ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike@cimcor.UUCP (Michael Grenier) (06/21/88)
From article <1893@qetzal.UUCP>, by rcw@qetzal.UUCP (Robert C. White): > I am using version 1.30 of Dos Merge on my 286. I find that I > still (after six months) cannot run the software with my machine > running at 10 mhz. Does anyone have any bright ideas? Typically, > the machine runs ok for five or ten minutes, then comes crashing > down with a general protection/double panic. Everything works fine > at 6 mhz, but the machine is a real dog. OK, the machine runs good at slow speed but fails at higher speed... Hmmm, doesn't really sound like a software problem to me. (I'm biased because I've been running DosMerge v1.3 at 10 Mhz for many months now). How does the system run with the regular kernel? > > Configuration: > > Genoa EGA card with 256k of memory > Phoenix Bios, Release 3.01. > Everex extended memory card > No name serial ports (2). > IMS/286 Box. (Intelligent Micro Systems). > > This other stuff is attached to the machine, but I > experienced the same problem before they were added: > > Everex 60 meg cartridge tape backup (QIC-36) IRQ5,DMA3 > Overland Data Qualstar Reel Tape IRQ7,DMA1 > Hitachi CD-ROM Drive (Anyone have a uport driver for this?) > > I see that you're using the printer interrupts. When in use by your devices, are the lp drivers disabled? If you are using the Overland device with their new Microport drivers than you should remember to remove that corrosponding lp driver from the kernel - vector 39 for the lp line in the file 'master' in the linkkit. The same goes for the Everex device (vector 37). If you are accessing these devices from DOS, are you sure they do not interrupt when not in use? Are you assigning the interrupts before using them from the Dos options or configuration? I'm really uncomfortable if you haven't removed the interrupt references to the printer drivers from the kernel. > The only thing I noticed that was wierd about this machine is that > I had to put exactly 640k of 120-ns ram chips on the motherboard. > There are 512k of 256k drams and 128k of 64k drams. All chips are > rated at 120ns. When I tried to put 1 megabyte on the motherboard, > all kinds of memory errors would result. > I assume you moved the starting address of the Everex extended memory card. If this is the 3 megabyte card with support for expanded memory, it should work great at 10 Mhz under DOSMerge. I've tested it! I further assume that you are runnning with one wait state. Who knows if that EGA card will handle 10 Mhz? In summary, I very much doubt that DosMerge is at fault here. Its either in the hardware configuration (devices like the RAM or EGA not taking 10Mhz well) or the configuration of DosMerge and the handling of interrupts. Another thing, DosMerge uses lots of memory - perhaps high RAM doesn't like the speed. Do you ever see the NMI error? My system used to panic also until I found a bad RAM card. Please run the system awhile with the regular kernel. -Mike Grenier {ihnp4???, rutgers, amdahl}!bungia!cimcor!mike mike@cimcor.mn.org
wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) (06/25/88)
In article <1893@qetzal.UUCP>, rcw@qetzal.UUCP (Robert C. White) writes: > The only thing I noticed that was wierd about this machine is that > I had to put exactly 640k of 120-ns ram chips on the motherboard. > There are 512k of 256k drams and 128k of 64k drams. All chips are > rated at 120ns. When I tried to put 1 megabyte on the motherboard, > all kinds of memory errors would result. You need 100ns RAM to run at 10 MHz. The probable reason for the memory errors when you put one meg one the board are due to the way most AT boards map the memory. When you put one meg on the board, they allocate it as 512K "normal" memory, addresses 0-512K, and 512K of extended memory, addresses 1M - 1.5M. Your extended memory board was probably overlapping this address space and the two were conflicting. If your system is 10 MHz / 1 wait state, you are probably OK on the memory. If, on the other tentacle, it is 10 MHz / 0 wait states, you may be experiencing memory errors, causing the crashes. If your RAM chips are sockected, you might want to buy 100 ns chips? -- /|\ Barnacle Wes @ Great Salt Lake Yacht Club, north branch / | \ @ J/22 #49, _d_J_i_n_n_i /__|__\ ___|____ "If I could just be sick, I'd be fine." ( / -- Joe Housely, owner of _E_p_i_d_e_m_i_c -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
wtr@moss.ATT.COM (06/27/88)
In article <250@obie.UUCP> wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) writes: >In article <1893@qetzal.UUCP>, rcw@qetzal.UUCP (Robert C. White) writes: >> The only thing I noticed that was wierd about this machine is that >> I had to put exactly 640k of 120-ns ram chips on the motherboard. >> There are 512k of 256k drams and 128k of 64k drams. All chips are >> rated at 120ns. When I tried to put 1 megabyte on the motherboard, >> all kinds of memory errors would result. > >You need 100ns RAM to run at 10 MHz. The probable reason for the >memory errors when you put one meg one the board are due to the way >most AT boards map the memory. [...] Your extended memory board >was probably overlapping this address space and the two were >conflicting. Or it could be the way that your motherboard addresses it's chips. Check if the board supports only 640K on the motherboard. If it does, then there's no way you can boost this to 1 Meg. Your board will refuse to map that extra 384K, or do nasty things like trying to map it over the rom and the video buffers, which are located in that upped 384K. Other motherboards that have specific addressing capabilities can handle that memory by either disabling the upper 384K (ala Sperry IT), map the entire upper 512K to the region of 1M-1.5M (also Sperry IT) or split it and map the upper 384K block to the region above 1M (Sperry IT doesnt do.) [ in case you havent guessed, i'm running V/AT on a Sperry IT :-) ] If you try to use 256K's when the addressing scheme's only expecting 64K's your going to have problems. Finally, i have seen 10 Mhz systems (my neighbors new toy ;-) running 10Mhz 1 wait state with 120ns drams. hope this has helped ===================================================================== Bill Rankin Bell Labs, Whippany NJ (201) 386-4154 (cornet 232) email address: ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd allegra ]!moss!wtr ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua watmath ]!clyde!wtr =====================================================================
karl@sugar.UUCP (Karl Lehenbauer) (06/28/88)
In article <1893@qetzal.UUCP>, rcw@qetzal.UUCP (Robert C. White) writes: > The only thing I noticed that was wierd about this machine is that > I had to put exactly 640k of 120-ns ram chips on the motherboard. > There are 512k of 256k drams and 128k of 64k drams. All chips are > rated at 120ns. When I tried to put 1 megabyte on the motherboard, > all kinds of memory errors would result. Remember that memory from 640K to 1 MB on the XT/AT is reserved for I/O. If your motherboard accomodates 1 MB, it does so as 0-640K and 1MB-1.384MB, so if you have extended memory (whatever they call it - it's the stuff that's directly addressed, not paged a la Lotus/Intel), set it to begin at 1 MB plus 384K. -- -- uunet!sugar!karl