rgs@phadfa.ph.adfa.oz.au (Robert Smith) (11/22/90)
I have a Gateway 2000 386SX (4Meg ram) with a Video7 VGA board, and have been having a problem with HIMEM.SYS and SMARTDRV.SYS in the Windows 3 package. Since there seem to be a couple of other people out there who are having similar problems I thought I would post this to see if anyone has a solution or at least an explanation. Basically, if I load HIMEM.SYS followed by SMARTDRV.SYS (from consecutive lines in my CONFIG.SYS file), then whenever I do anything else after the machine has booted, it crashes, usually displaying a "Parity Error ???" message, followed by "System Halted". I have tried all sorts of things but nothing seems to work, although with only HIMEM.SYS installed Windows will run OK in enhanced mode ... but not without the occasional "Irrecoverable Application Error". Quite by accident, yesterday I hit the turbo switch on my machine which reduced it's speed by half (from 16MHz). Suddenly everything works fine and I can load HIMEM.SYS and SMARTDRV.SYS and do anything I want without any problems at all. Does anyone have any clues as to what could be causing this? Is it the Video board (it has 256K ram)? Could it be my system board, maybe the C&T chipset? I would love to hear from anyone with any ideas or suggestions, since I don't want to be condemned to running my 16MHz machine at 8MHz every time I want to run windows! Robert Smith (rgs@phadfa.ph.adfa.oz.au)
ppa@hpldola.HP.COM (Paul Austgen) (11/29/90)
I think that the problem may be with smartdrv. I used to use it as my caching routine, including outside of windows. With the smartdrv version for Windows 3, my AT switches into Turbo mode whenever extended memory is accessed (such as when the disc cache is used). This switch isn't so bad in itself, but it indicates to me that the program counter is dancing around in the BIOS out of control. I have stopped using smartdrv for this reason.
chapin@hfsi.UUCP (Susan Chapin) (11/30/90)
YES! I also have a Gateway 2000 (386/20, 4meg), and with my brand new Video 7 1024i (512k) and brand new Windows 3, if I include himem.sys and smartdrv.sys into config.sys the system hangs without booting. Please include me in any responses! I do want to run a memory manager, preferably the one that Microsoft expects so I don't have to do a lot of hacking, and a disk cacher ditto. HELP HELP HELP! - Susan Chapin hfsi!chapin@uunet.uu.net
chapin@hfsi.UUCP (Susan Chapin) (11/30/90)
I have more information on this now. The Microsoft customer support rep on Compuserve, Todd Martin, tells me that there is some kind of a hardware problem with Gateway 2000, and SMARTDRV will not work. I turned off SMARTDRV on my Gateway 386/20, and the system now boots and Windows comes up. Now the DOS prompt application gives me a "system integrity violated" error. When I get home I will follow up on a suggestion I received that I may be using an old himem.sys -- but does anyone have another suggestion? Are there any other Gateway 2000 386 users out there, and did you have to do anything special to get Windows 3 up and working correctly? Thanks, Susan Chapin hfsi!chapin@uunet.uu.net
joris@tnosoes.izf.tno.nl (Joris Linssen) (11/30/90)
chapin@hfsi.UUCP (Susan Chapin) writes: >YES! I also have a Gateway 2000 (386/20, 4meg), and with my brand new >Video 7 1024i (512k) and brand new Windows 3, if I include himem.sys and >smartdrv.sys into config.sys the system hangs without booting. I recognize part of this problem. I have once tried using the same combination of himem and smartdrv. My system didn't hang directly, but some applications did...Although I'm not sure, I suspect that smartdrv is not (entirely) compatible with the XMS specifications used for example by himem. My solution to this problem was using a different cache: pc-cache version 6.0 No problems since then, hope this helps, Joris. =============================================================================== Joris Linssen TNO Institute for Perception P.O. Box 23 Phone : +31 34 63 562 11 3769 ZG Soesterberg E-mail: tnosoes!joris@mcvax.cwi.nl The Netherlands or: joris@izf.tno.nl ===============================================================================
liberato@dri.com (Jimmy Liberato) (12/06/90)
In article <rgs.659275134@phadfa> rgs@phadfa.ph.adfa.oz.au (Robert Smith) writes: >I have a Gateway 2000 386SX (4Meg ram) with a Video7 VGA board, and >have been having a problem with HIMEM.SYS and SMARTDRV.SYS in the >Windows 3 package... > >Basically, if I load HIMEM.SYS followed by SMARTDRV.SYS (from >consecutive lines in my CONFIG.SYS file), then whenever I do anything >else after the machine has booted, it crashes, usually displaying a >"Parity Error ???" message, followed by "System Halted"... > >Quite by accident, yesterday I hit the turbo switch on my machine which >reduced it's speed by half (from 16MHz). Suddenly everything works fine >and I can load HIMEM.SYS and SMARTDRV.SYS and do anything I want without >any problems at all. Does anyone have any clues as to what could be >causing this?... You might have your motherboard set up as "0 wait state" with ram that is not quite fast enough. I don't know how Gateway configures their systems but you should be able to enter their setup program through a key sequence during bootup. Add 1 wait state and check for any improvement. Good Luck! -- Jimmy Liberato liberato@dri.com ...uunet!drivax!liberato