Message-ID: <003b01c0ee9d$a1066180$a808e289@mpaul> From: "Matthias Paul" To: References: <20010604203835 DOT WKQZ287 DOT mta2-svc DOT virgin DOT net AT leo> Subject: Re: multitasking gives blank screen Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 17:28:02 +0200 Organization: University of Technology, RWTH Aachen, Germany MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by delorie.com id LAA19160 Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com On 2001-06-04, Richard Adamson wrote: > Ive got 8 Mb extended memory (whether Im managing to access it is another > question) with MULTI specified. The DOS is newly installed and configured > via the Setup utility, quite conservatively. Yes, having a look at your configuration files and memory dumps your memory setup is far from being optimized. However, I will concentrate on trying to isolate your problem for now. Once we manage to get it working, we can still fine-tune your configuration and thereby you should be able to get much more memory for DOS applications and still experience a significant performance boost at the same time. In case we cannot solve the TASKMGR problem, we can still optimize your system for normal use later. You might be able to run alternative task switchers then, for example the MS-DOS DOSSHELL and DV also run under DR-DOS. > [...] > |ISA :006F0000 AT 00110000 This means that the memory manager is using 6F0000h bytes of "ISA style" extended memory at linear address 110000h. Letīs see: 8*1024 Kb (installed memory) - 1024 Kb (1st Mb) - 64 Kb (HMA) = 7104 Kb = 7274496 bytes = 6F0000h bytes. OK 1024 Kb (1st Mb) + 64 Kb (HMA) = 1088 Kb = 1114112 bytes = 110000h bytes. OK What does it say when you omit the /COMPAQ=OFF option? > Sorry, what I meant was e.g. I run the text editor and open a file, > then using the hotkeys, I get the task swapper menu, and press INS > to start a new task. As you would expect, I get the DOS prompt. Yes. > But if I go back to the task swapping menu, theres only one task > up there, so the first session has disappeared. Now if run the text > editor and try to open that text file again, it says "Disk error - file > already open" I have never seen this occuring so far. Sometimes I just get a black screen instead of a DOS prompt when I start a task with INS, but if I press CTRL+ESC again, I usually get the TASKMGR menu again, with one task named "TASKMGR" instead of "COMMAND", so TASKMGR somehow hung before it could launch or create an instance of COMMAND.COM. Sometimes I also get a page with a disturbed character font, but still, if you press the keys blindly, if works... As long as I donīt select this hanging task, I can still use the other tasks, but - of course - the system will hang when I am shutting down. Has anyone else seen the behaviour Robert is describing? Maybe we can find some trigger conditions. > Im not using a 3rd party shell, exec=false, I have tried various > combinations of hot keys, but made no difference so back to > default since last re-installation. Ok, if you were using a 3rd party shell like 4DOS you need to set EXEC=TRUE and - due to a small bug in 4DOS (unfortunately still not fixed with 7.00 BETA 46) - insert the following line at the beginning of AUTOEXEC.BAT (this is to close the DR pre-environment, otherwise the system may hang under the TASKMGR under some cirumstances): @c:\drdos\command.com /C EXIT But even if you use COMMAND.COM I would still be interested if EXEC=TRUE makes a difference for you. TASKMGR will behave differently when you create or delete tasks, you inheritation of batch jobs works differently. You may see the difference as you are loading TASKMGR from AUTOEXEC.BAT. BTW. You donīt need to re-install DR-DOS when removing or adding hardware components. > > You can try to narrow the excluded area until the problem occurs. > > What are the adapters installed into your computer, anything that > > is using memory mapped I/O like (SMC?) network adapters or > > some graphics cards? > > In this case you must manually exclude these areas which are > > used for memory mapped I/O as EMM386 might have difficulties > > to detect them automatically. > > I havent tried this yet. Task swapping does work when all upper memory > is excluded, and doesnt when it isnt; but pre-emptive multitasking doesnt > work in either case, so I figured it was a separate problem at this stage? This might be the case, yes. > Sorry I dont know how to answer or find out about the adapters. The VGA > is a card, not on the motherboard. There is an (unused) sound card. There > was a network card; Ive taken that out, and reinstalled since then. Ok, any other cards installed? What brand was the network card? I am asking because SMC cards are known to use memory mapped I/O, while original NE2000 cards, and all 3COM cards I know donīt use MMIO. > AUTOEXEC.BAT: > ************* > |PATH C:\DRDOS;C:\;c:\utils > |KEYB dv,,dvorak.sys OK, this must be a MS-DOS or PC DOS KEYB. And this is the only reason I can see, why you load SETVER in CONFIG.SYS. For troubleshooting I would strongly suggest to remove this driver and optionally use the DR KEYB instead. (The MS KEYB has some bad habits.) Backdraw: DR KEYB does not support Dvorak layouts, but in case we would isolate this driver as the cause for the problem, you could switch to FreeKEYB later, which also supports Dvorak. > |SET TEMP=c:temp SET temp=c:\temp SET tmp=%temp% > |NWCACHE 3584 1024 /LEND=ON /DELAY=OFF /DELAY=5000 will give you better performance, but you should also change the VERIFY ON to VERIFY OFF, otherwise NWCACHE cannot defer any writes. > |TASKMGR /s Please comment this out for now, and load TASKMGR directly from the prompt, not from a batchjob. > > CONFIG.SYS: > *********** Since you have MS-DOS or PC DOS anyway, I would like to ask you to try the following: DEVICE?=c:\msdos\himem.sys The MS-DOS HIMEM.SYS supports a few more gate A20 access methods, and using the MS driver we can check if your Compaq would use a method unsupported by the DR memory managers. You can still load the DR-DOS EMM386 afterwards, but for troubleshooting also try to only load HIMEM.SYS and no EMM386 (please try all combinations). The TASKMGR should still work as a task switcher than, but not as a multitasker. > |DEVICE=C:\DRDOS\EMM386.EXE MULTI DPMI=OFF > FRAME=NONE /E=C000-FFFF verbose=debug compaq=off Ok, your MEM /A dump shows some unusual ROMs in the UMB range. You can use MS-DOS MSD to find out whatīs up with them. Alternatively you could do a F5 clean boot, start DEBUG, and have a look at a memory dump at D C000:0000 D D E000:0000 D D F000:0000 D Q You should see some copyright strings there. What do they read? Can you send me (via private mail) memory dumps of C000-C7FF and E000-FFFF? Therefore you would need to fire up the *DR-DOS* DEBUG and type in the following: M C000:0000 L 8000 CS:0100 RCX=8000 N C000.BIN W M E000:0000 L 8000 CS:0100 N E000.BIN W M E800:0000 L 8000 CS:0100 N E800.BIN W M F000:0000 L 8000 CS:0100 N F000.BIN W M F800:0000 L 8000 CS:0100 N F800.BIN W Q You will then find five files named C000.BIN, E000.BIN, E8000.BIN, F000.BIN, and F800.BIN (each 32768 bytes) in the current directory. They contain a 1:1 dump of the BIOS ROM contents on your machine. Please pack them with PKZIP and send them to me for analysis purposes (to one of the addresses stated in the signature). I need to know why the memory managers classify two of the ROMs to be 24 Kb instead of 32 Kb (this is not impossible, but it is at least unusual, so we should track this down) Also try DEVICE?=c:\drdos\emm386.exe /DPMI /MULTI /EXCLUDE=C000-C7FF,E000-FFFF Please also try to temporarily add the /XBDA option, a MEM /A dump should now show the Extended BIOS Data Area at a different position. > |DEVICE=C:\DRDOS\SETVER.EXE Please temporarily remove this along with MS KEYB. I understand that you have added MS KEYB to the SETVER list, didnīt you? Have you added other strings as well? (SETVER without parameters will display a list of currently assigned version faking info) > |FILES=20 You may need more files when running multiple tasks, I usually have FILES=60. > |FCBS=4,4 I usually have FCBS=1,0 > |LASTDRIVE=C Not invalid, but at least unusual. Please change this to LASTDRIVE=E for now. > TASKMGR.INI > *********** > |[Drivers] > |VXD=C:\DRDOS\VIPX.38 Probably a typo. I should say VIPX.386 > |[Disk] > |SwapDir=c:swap It should say c:\temp, or if c:\swap exists, c:\swap, otherwise this may cause problems when swapping tasks. Is it really true that the DR-DOS SETUP inserted this? > |[Shell] > |Idle=TRUE > |Exec=FALSE OK, try EXEC=TRUE as well. > C000:0000 -------- 6000h, 24,576 ------------- ROM --------------- > E000:0000 -------- 6000h, 24,576 ------------- ROM --------------- > E000:0000 -------- 20000h, 131,072 ------------- ROM --------------- > 9FC0:0000 -------- 400h, 1,024 Extended ROM BIOS data area > FA00:0000 -------- 1000h, 4,096 ---------- Shadow ROM ----------- > FD00:0000 -------- 1000h, 4,096 ---------- Shadow ROM ----------- Greetings, Matthias -- Matthias Paul, Ubierstrasse 28, D-50321 Bruehl, Germany mailto:; mailto: http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html; http://mpaul.drdos.org