cyze@uwovax.uwo.ca (11/25/90)
My AT computer does not seem to like (some) Microsoft software. I have recently acquired both Windows 3.0 and QuickC with QuickAssembler 2.51, and both programs are driving me batty. Often when I am in either the Windows or QC environment my computer will just hang after about 10 minutes of normal use. I have a 100% clone AT, w. math co-processor, SVGA (STB EM16) card, Logitech mouse, working with DOS version 3.30, and incorporate GenStar 3.03 286 modular bios. QUICKC: Normally I would initialize my mouse with a line in my autoexec, and the driver would stay resident. However, if I do this and then try to use QC, the instant I touch the mouse the computers _dies_. I read in the documentation that unpredictable results may be expected when not using the Microsoft mouse.com driver (versions 6.1 or later) so I removed the mouse initialization stuff from the autoexec to see what would happen. OK, it works fine but only _most of the time_ and not _always_! As mentioned earlier, occasionally I will be working in the QC environment and either the computer will completely hang, or will spit garbage onto the bottom half of the screen every time I PageUp or PageDown and then hang. In the second instance the C program I have in memory appears as garbage when I page up and is replaced by different gibberish when I page down immediately after. Sometimes the garbage won't reappear and my original C program will miraculously come back to life - although soon afterwards the C is revived it inevitably dies in a computer hanging. I did _not_ have this problem with QuickC 2.0. WINDOWS: Windows dies in a subtly different way. I have installed the included Logitech mouse driver in Windows. This seems to work fine. Again, though, every so often I will be working with Coreldraw! or any other Windows application and the computer will go kaput - the screen remains the same (although the menus become a little messy (not with garbage, just disorganized)) but the keyboard and mouse do not appear to respond. I also had this problem with Windows 2.0. I of course have already harassed Microsoft's product support. After a small fortune in long-distance telephone calls (most of the time spent on hold) the support people figured the Diskmanager driver I was using to split my 40Meg drive into two 20's was the culprit. This made sense to me, so I went through the trouble of reformatting my drive and partitioning it with FDISK. That is what Microsoft said to do. I still experience the exact same problems I mentioned above. I presently keep my autoexec in bare bones condition: PROMPT $P $G PATH ..... My config.sys is just as sparse: FILES = 30 BUFFERS = 25 DRIVER = RAPIDBIOS.SYS (effectively speeds up my EM16 card - I have tried not including this driver) I program a fair bit in QuickC so I consider it crucial that I get it working right. It is not as important that I get Windows working perfectly, however I feel a little stupid using such (at least on my computer) unstable software. I also have a couple hundred bucks invested in these programs. Any help would be very much appreciated. Mike Cyze --------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNIVERSE OF WESTERN ONTARIO Department of Geophysics CYZE@UWOVAX.UWO.CA