SOLUTIONS TO WINDOWS LOCK-UP PROBLEMS

Support Bulletin: 3030 Rev: A

Problem: PC locks when starting Windows, Windows will not install, or PC locks intermittently from within Windows (this icludes Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1 and Windows For Workgroups). Solution: Exclude the adapter memory using both the memory manager and Windows, and resolve any A20 conflicts.

Excluding the adapter memory:

1. Excluding the adapter memory using the memory manager varies with each memory manager product. The two most common memory managers are QEMM386, by Quarterdeck, and EMM386, the memory manager that ships with Windows and DOS 5.0. Both of these products use the same switch to exclude the adapter memory, X=xxxx-yyyy where xxxx-yyyy is the memory range to be excluded.

Example:

DEVICE=C:\DOS\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE X=DC00-DFFF

NOTE: QEMM386 will accept EXCLUDE in place of the X parameter. ADAPTERRAM, ARAM, or ADAPTERROM, AROM, can also be used to exclude the adapters memory with QEMM386. excluding the adapter memory in this way will display Adapter RAM area or Adapter ROM area as apposed to Excluded area when maps of the memory are viewed via QEMM.

1. Excluding the adapter memory using Windows is accomplished by adding the statement EMMEXCLUDE=xxxx-yyyy to the Windows configuration file, SYSTEM.INI. This parameter is placed in the 386 enhanced section of the SYSTEM.INI file. The SYSTEM.INI is located in the subdirectory containing the Windows files, typically C:\WINDOWS. As stated above, xxxx-yyyy is the memory range to be excluded.

Example:
[386enh]

EMMEXCLUDE=DC00-DFFF

Resolving A20 conflicts:

1. The best way to resolve an A20 conflict is to simply set the adapter card to another i/o port.

2. If a different i/o port cannot be used, adding the statement TokenRingSearch=Off will resolve A20 conflicts between Windows and the adapter card. This statement is placed in the 386 enhanced section of the SYSTEM.INI file.

Example:

[386enh]
TokenRingSearch=Off

NOTE: There still may exist an A20 conflict between the memory manager and the adapter card. This typically can only be resolved by changing the adapter cards i/o port.