From: chris@atl.scscom.com (Chris Boaro)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: I need help/advice with OS/2 GA, please.
Date: 14 Apr 92 13:14:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: atl.1992Apr14.131417.25257
Organization: SCS/Compute, Inc.

In <70240@ut-emx.uucp> mo@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Mohit Goyal) writes:

Mohit, you've posted a few messages here asking for help. This one and your
previous one are quite long, apparently covering many small problems.
Remember that the net is not an IBM support site. People here help out if
they can, if you have problem that they can identify. If you write too
long, about too many hard to identify problems, you're going to find it
difficult to get usefull advice. Now, keeping in mind that I am not one
of the fortunate few to have actually seen GA yes, let me try and help
out a little...

> On to the problems.  When OS/2 boots up it does not turn on my Num Lock,
>Caps Lock, or Scroll Lock keys.  If I press either of those three keys while
>OS/2 is loaded, the keyboard locks up and I can use it again until I reboot.
>Also, I hit caps lock in a full screen DOS session and the system hung.

These may be keyboard handling problems with... if you can isolate them and
recreate them 100% of the time, you should report them to IBM.

>  I
>couldn't do anything at all.  I had to do a cold boot.  Also, when I load OS/2
>I can't hit ESC when I turn on the computer to bypass the memory test.

When BIOS is doing your memory test, not a single line of OS/2 code has been
loaded. If you can not ESC during the memory test, that would lead me to
wonder if there isn't some problem with your keyboard... especially after
your other keyboard problems..

> Let's see, what else.  Oh yeah, I ran the program CPUSPEED, available from
>hobbes.nmsu.edu and my system locked.  I had to reboot.
> When I run the program PMCOMM v1.10 and call the Internet for example, 
>every now and then,(it seems random), all the text will start being displayed
>diagnolly, I can fix the problem by clearing the screen.  I'm not sure if this
>is an OS/2 problem, but my friend who also runs PMCOMM with the same settings
>for it and OS/2 has never had this problem.

These problems are impossible to pin down with the information you've given.
Either you have a hardware problem, or, if others can't run the same programs,
the programs don't work right under GA. I don't know which.

>Take note - every time I reboot from a system hang, OS/2's chkdsk will find
>errors in SWAPPER.DAT and fix them.  Hmmm...oh yeah, I can not always shut
>down.  Sometimes it will simply display the message 'shutting down system
>please wait' and I will for a few *minutes* until all system activity has
>seemingly stopped, but if I click on the desktop, I get a menu again.  I
>have been able to shut down correctly also.

Yes, if you do a cold boot, the file system will do a chkdsk...
 
> Finally, I read the readme file and noticed OS/2 supported SVGA for the
>exact same card I have, the STB Powergraph, so I thought I'd try it.  I
>ran SVGA ON successfully from a DOS full screen, shut down and reboot.
>I then ran SVGA Status and it correctly identified my graphics chip.  Anyways,
>I am not sure what SVGA support OS/2 2.0 has, but I displayed a 1024X768
>w/256colors .gif in a DOS full screen using VPIC, and hit alt-home to make
>it a window, and the system had a 'real' crash for the first time, where it
>gave me a trap error, and told me to write down a number:
>##0160:fff6453f -
>000d:a53f 60000, 9084

>Anyways, I am back to DOS again.  I guess that what I have is a hardware
>compatibility problem.  What bugs me is that I have another friend who is
>running his on a system that is almost exactly like mine, except he his
>motherboard is not made by Amptron and he has no problems.  I have one
>other friend who is running it on an Amptron 386-33w64k cache and it flies
>on his system.  He also has 8 megs and a fast video card.  We all have the
>same BIOS date, AMI 4-9-90.  

>Well, if you have any advice and/or suggestions please mail me or reply
>to this newsgroup.  By the way, my two friends who are running OS/2 GA have
>legal copies.  I installed one of their copies on my machine to get a feel
>for OS/2(I had never used it before) and to get an idea of how much more
>memory I need, and any other system improvements. (as it turns out it looks
>like I will need a brand new system!)  I will still be buying OS/2 2.0 later
>this week when our university store gets it because I want to support OS/2,
>and I have seen it run on a nice machine, and it runs well.  Oh well, I'm
>off...later.

Welp, that's the best I can do.. good luck.

Chris
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc