From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: Oh, nooo....... More Problems.
Date: 20 Nov 92 21:31:04 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <BxywwJ.JKp@sci.kun.nl> sandvl@sci.kun.nl (Sander van Leeuwen) writes:
>My configuration:
>486SX-25 motherboard (brand Ultron) (AMI bios dated somewhere in 1992)
>8 Mb RAM
>125 MB Seagate 1144a HD
>1.44 Mb drive 
>1.2 Mb drive
>ATI VGA Wonder + (512 Kb) + bus mouse
>Philips modem (model NMS 1265) 1200/75 bps (not on com1) (IRQ 3)
>Genius Scanner model GS4500 (DMA 3)
>Ad Lib Gold 1000 music card (IRQ 3, DMA 1 and 3)
>1 parallel, 1 serial and 1 game port
>Epson LX-800 on LPT1
>
>HD: 1MB Bootmanager
>    35 MB HPFS with OS/2 2.0 (primary partition)
>    5 MB FAT with MS-DOS 5.0 (primary partition)
>    80 MB FAT (logical partition)
>
>PROBLEMS:(these are the most frequently returning problems)
>- When I set the IRQ of my music card on LPT2 (IRQ 7) I cannot print anything
>  (I get the message that the printer spooler cannot write to LPT1)

You can't share interrupts on an ISA machine.  LPT1 uses IRQ-7.  Set
your sound card to IRQ-5.  Your choice of IRQ-3 may work, but note
than COM2 uses IRQ-3, so that may end up conflicting now.  IRQ-5 is
generally unused unless you have LPT2 installed.  IRQ-2 can be good if
nothing else (like a mouse card) is using it.

>  ...and tried to print a file with Enhanced Editor. I got the error
>  message that the active application wasn't responding to system
>  requests.  Somehow I succeeded in exiting the editor. But this
>  wasn't the end; I tried to  close the Productivity Folder and
>  suddenly I got the error message that the application Productivity
>  wasn't responding to system requests. After I tried several things
>  to end it, the only thing that was left was pushing the big RED
>  button.  (I never had this problem again)  

This doesn't seem to be related to the IRQ problem.  There are still
bugs in WPS, and things sometimes deadlock on resources and don't
respond to anything.  Since it hasn't happened again, I wouldn't worry
much. 

>- I cannot start CPBackup 7.1 nor PCTools 7.1. I get the message that these 
>  programs have executed illegal instructions. 

I don't think these will ever work.  They're not meant to work in
protected mode.  They'd probably crash in a Windows DOS box as well.

>- Norton's Sysinfo doesn't work like it should. When I start it, it begins 
>  reading from drive A and B. (this takes a long time) After a while
>  everything works fine.  

Again, I'd expect this.  low-level utilities won't work under OS/2.
They are being refused access to certain parts of the hardware.

>- I can crash OS/2 anytime I want. When I add to the following to the autoexec.
>  bat of a VDM and try to play some music the system crashes:
>   SET GOLD = 388 
>   SET GOLDPATH = d:\adlgld;d:\adlgld\drivers
>  (the virtual dos machine consists of command.com, io.sys, msdos.sys of MS-DOS)

Your AdLib Gold drivers may be incompatible with the VDM.  Again,
low-level device drivers and programs may fail.  IBM has stated that
DOS block device drivers should not be used.  Not knowing how AdLib
has structured their drivers, I can't say more.

Contact AdLib for some OS/2 drivers.  You may not have much luck, but
it's worth a shot.  An OS/2 driver will get it to work with MMPM/2,
and a virtual driver will get it to work under DOS boxes.

>I've run all these programs on a 386-40 with 5 Mb RAM without any luck.
>Some of the problems disappeared (CPbackup, Pctools, Lotus 123, keyboard), but
>I have encountered some new ones: Sysinfo sometimes just crashes or has the same
>problems a the 486SX has. The new thing is that I cannot remove the program from
>memory, so I cannot shut down normally.

Don't use low-level programs.  And get yourself some more memory.

>Can anybody tell me whether the 486 motherboards from Mylex, AMI and Micronics
>are 100 compatible with OS/2 2.0? 

Who knows.  i've found that 386's are more compatible than most 486's
in this respect.  I've no idea why.



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