[comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc] what can you do when your computer locks up?

ggr@dale.acc.Virginia.EDU (Guillermo G. Romero) (08/23/90)

I recently purchased a HP Vectra QS/16S 386SX machine.
The machine is now equipped with a 387sx coprocessor,
a second hard disk and a WDPlus ethernet card.  I have
had two problems with the machine since I bought it:

1.  The computer locks up whenever it encounters a
    floating point exception (i.e., a division by 0
    or an overflow error).  Yup, it  simply hangs in
    there and I have to turn it off in order to recover
    control.  Warm boots will not do it.  This has
    happened using commercial data analysis programs
    as well as with FORTRAN code written by myself
    and compiled using MS FORTRAN.  The same programs
    run OK in other machines and behave as expected.
    The machine was sent back to a local HP rep and the
    message I get is that there is nothing wrong with
    it.  Any advice?

2.  My second problem probably has nothing to do with
    the machine itself.  I am trying to use MKS Toolkit
    as my standard shell but I seem to have some serious
    compatibility problems with MS FORTRAN.  When invoked
    from the shell, the compiler works OK but the linker
    comes up with a misterious "Invalid object module"
    message.  As per page 380 of the MS FORTRAN manual,
    I should phone Microsoft Product Assistance, which
    is an almost impossible task.  Fortunately, the
    problem disappears when I run the compiler from DOS
    but only in the absence of any TSR programs.  Any
    suggestions?

Please reply by E-mail.

Guillermo Romero
ggr@dale.acc.Virginia.EDU
ggr@virginia.bitnet