Message-ID: <3BFC40E7.9050502@ntlworld.com> Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 00:03:51 +0000 From: Uncle Slacky User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-GB; rv:0.9.2) Gecko/20010726 Netscape6/6.1 X-Accept-Language: en-gb, en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: Best config for a 286? References: <3BF988C9 DOT 5060701 AT ntlworld DOT com> <000801c1724b$4cfac0e0$027efea9 AT atlantis> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Matthias Paul wrote: > Could you be a bit more specific about the problem, please? Does > HIMEM.SYS give you an error message, does it hang, doesn´t it find > the memory, doesn´t it support your chipset? See my latest post. Prior to this it was giving an error message and refused to install HIMEM. > What brand is the 286? If possible, I would be interested in the > mainboard model and - very important - the manufacturer of the > ROM-BIOS and the version. This should be displayed at startup or > could be leaked with the usual bunch of system info tools like > Quarterdeck´s MFT, Microsoft´s MSD, Norton SI, CONFIG, or DEBUG. OK, here's the gen: Brand: CAF (laptop) Model: Superlite 286/16-027-01 FCC ID: DWHS16 Date of manufacture: October 1991 Motherboard code (displayed at bottom of screen during bootup): DG22-1115-061390-K8 BIOS: AMI HT-21 286 BIOS (1990 copyright) Also seen at bootup: Stingray Rev 4+ VGA BIOS v3.02 (copyright Cirrus and Award) - I assume this is just the display controller. In the BIOS I have Video BIOS Shadow Enabled Scratch RAM option=1 Main BIOS shadow Enabled. > On a 286 with limited memory you will probably want to make maximum > use of your memory. I suggest to replace VDISK.SYS or RAMDRIVE.SYS > with TDSK.EXE Thanks, I'll take a look! > In regard how to optimze memory on a 286, if your 286 has a chipset > which supports mapping in memory between C800h-EFFFh I suggest to > enable this feature (usually in the ROM-BIOS setup), as you can > load high some of your drivers then. Dunno if mine qualifies. > It might also be useful to get > the DR-DOS HIMEM.SYS running on your system because if you have > one of the supported chipsets it may give you access to UMB > memory through the chipset. Have done - though I'm not sure why it suddenly decided to work! I'll try them! > Good luck and please report back your results. Will do - though it might be a while. I'll install PCDOS 2000 and see how that compares. > we might help you with > some fine-tuning to squezze the last free bytes out of your > system (for which we would need to see your CONFIG.SYS and > AUTOEXEC.BAT and a MEM /A report)... Will do! Rob