ggreenbe@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Gerald Greenberg) (05/06/91)
I know there was a discussion a while ago about how smartdrv didn't work all that great, and people were suggesting hyperdisk and pckwick's cache as alternatives. Well, smartdrv used to trash everything in my system, o I gave up on it long ago. Recently, however, someone pointed out there was a newer version of smartdrv on cica, so I got a hold of it, and it seems to (at least) not trash everything....on the other hand, it doesn't work totally, either. Here's what happens...I hope somebody will be able to suggest how to avoid this problem. I have smartdrv set up with 1024 and 256 memory (I have 1.5 meg extended memory). When I boot, the windows banner comes up and then leaves the screen, then the hourglass comes up in the middle of the screen, with the desktop wallpaper visible. That is as far as it goes. The hourglass is moveable around the screen (via my mouse), but no icons come up, or anything. If I disable smartdrv in my config.sys file, everything works fine. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks very much. Gerry ggreenbe@rodan.acs.syr.edu
colfelt@news.colorado.edu (COLFELT ANDREW BRINTON W) (05/15/91)
ggreenbe@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Gerald Greenberg) writes: >... Well, smartdrv >used to trash everything in my system, o I gave up on it long >ago. Recently, however, someone pointed out there was a newer >version of smartdrv on cica, so I got a hold of it, and it >seems to (at least) not trash everything....on the other hand, >it doesn't work totally, either. >Here's what happens...I hope >somebody will be able to suggest how to avoid this problem. I >have smartdrv set up with 1024 and 256 memory (I have 1.5 meg >extended memory). When I boot, the windows banner comes up >and then leaves the screen, then the hourglass comes up in the >middle of the screen, with the desktop wallpaper visible. >That is as far as it goes. The hourglass is moveable around >the screen (via my mouse), but no icons come up, or anything. >If I disable smartdrv in my config.sys file, everything works >fine. Does anyone have any ideas? >Thanks very much. The memory you're giving to SmartDrv is far too large for a 1.5 Mb system! Change to: SMARTDRV.SYS 768 128 or SMARTDRV.SYS 512 128 I have a 2Mb system and have these values set to 768 256. Microsoft recommended 512 256, but this was not a very effective setup. A friend of mine has 1.6Mb and found the same thing. The difference between 0 minimum and 128 minimum is remarkable, so don't fret about the puny minimum setting. Do some experimenting with max 512 - 768 and min 0 - 256 (a pain in the ass, I know) and get out your stopwatch and watch the hard drive light (listen to the drive also) and notice the differences these settings yield. It is probably best to experiment with large programs such as 1-2-3 to see how long it takes to run, and how much repetitive action goes on in the drive with the low-low memory alloctions. Good Luck! Andrew colfelt@tramp.colroado.edu