From: nordstro@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Christian Nordstroem)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.misc
Subject: Re: Smartdrv of Win 3.1 makes my system go asleep!
Date: 12 Aug 92 16:00:18 GMT
Organization: Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany

nauck@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de (Detlef Nauck) writes:

>Hi,

>today I installed Windows 3.1 on my 486 DX 33 Mhz clone, and was very much
>surprised when I started to work under DOS or Windows.

>The PC was about 10 TIMES SLOWER when it came to reading from the harddisk.

>This could be noticed during boot time, and when switching drives under 
>PCSHELL (which I use as my main DOS shell to start programs, etc.). Turning
>of the write cache didn't change anything, and without double buffering my
>system hung. 
>After replacing the new SMARTDRV installed by Windows (with double buffering 
>as I have a SCSI 338MB drive) with the old DOS 5.0 version of SMARTDRV 
>everything turned back to normal.

>So what does the new SMARTDRV do to my system? Doesn't it like SCSI drives?
>Is it save to use the old SMARTDRV with Windows 3.1? I could also use
>PCCACHE from PCTOOLS 7.1, what about this?
>I will investigate further, but perhaps someone of you has an idea.

>My hardware:
>Mainboard:  486 DX 33 Mhz, 256 KB Cache, Bios: American Megatrend 1990
>            dated 07/07/91
>Controller: Adapatec AT/SCSI Bios 3.10
>Harddrive : 338 MB 
>Video     : Sigma Legend II 1MB
>Memory    : 8 MB

>Configuration:
>1536 KB as expanded memory
>1024 KB ramdrive
>2048 KB for smartdrv (1024 under Windows)

>Resident programs:
>monitor.com (for having 70Hz under 1024x768, from Sigma Legend)
>datamonitor from PCTOOLS (delete tracker and screenblanker)
>mirror from PCTOOLS
>driver for ethernet card (3c501 driver under DOS, pktint of winqvt net)
>mouse driver
>doskey
>swapshell of PCTOOLS 

>Cheers,

>Detlef.

hiya...well, looks like you still have the write-cache on...
try these from my autoexec.bat:

@echo off
lh C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE a b c g 256
VERIFY OFF
rem D:\SBPRO\DRV\MSCDEX /V /D:MSCD001 /M:15 
SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T4
C:\tools\TNTVIRUS\BOOTSAFE C:
PROMPT $T $D $V$_$p$g
PATH C:\PRG\EXCEL;C:\PRG\WINWORD;C:\WINDOWS;C:\DEV\MOUSE;C:\BIN\DOS;C:\TOOLS\PACKS\;C:\DEV\NC;c:\bin\unix;
SET TEMP=D:\
SET TMP=D:\
MODE LPT1:,,B >NUL
SET NC=C:\DEV\NC
SET SOUND=C:\SOUND\SBPRO
C:\SOUND\SBPRO\SBP-SET /M:12 /VOC:12 /CD:12 /FM:1
lh c:\bin\dos\KEYB GR,,C:\bin\DOS\KEYBOARD.SYS
lh c:\windows\system\mouse /y
lh C:\DEV\CD\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001
if exist c:\treeinfo.ncd del c:\treeinfo.ncd
if exist c:\treeinfo.dt del c:\treeinfo.dt

and my config.sys looks like this:

LASTDRIVE=H
country=049,,c:\bin\dos\country.sys
files=30
buffers=3
DOS=HIGH,umb
device=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
shell=c:\command.com /p/e:512
devicehigh=c:\bin\dos\setver.exe
devicehigh=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE i=b000-b7ff i=c800-f3ff x=c000-c7ff noems
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE /DOUBLE_BUFFER
devicehigh=c:\windows\ramdrive.sys 4096 /e
DEVICEhigh=c:\DEV\CD\MTMCDD.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:300 /A:0 /M:2 /T:3 /I:3
STACKS=9,256

i use a 386-40 with 8Mb so the ramdrive is 4MB.... :)
and with those adresses with teh EMM386.exe you can get up to 629kb free RAM !!!!!!!!! (wonderful for big games...)

anyway... c ya

Ringo