[aurgathor]

I have Win98SE on an Athlon mobo with KM266 chipset, 768 meg of memory, and a Diamond FireGL 1000 Pro AGP graphics card.

To get it to boot, I had to add:
MaxPhysPage=10000 // tried 18000 first, but "protection error"
MaxFileCache=393216

I'm a very heavy user of Ghost and I just discovered that it no longer works in DOS I can get to after "Restart in MS-DOS mode".
Norton Ghost just doesn't start (nothing happens) and I have to use a DOS boot floppy to be able to use Ghost.

Any idea on how to undo the effect of those two settings when exiting to DOS? I can use a floppy if I absolutely have to, but it's a royal PITA.

[Sfor]

If the MaxFileCache is too big, the DOS related applications stop running. Yo should try to decrease the MaxFileCache.

In my case on 1GB RAM the MaxFileCache setting above 800000 prevents DOS applications from running.

[aurgathor]

I changed the max cache to 256 meg, 128 meg, then 64 meg, and lastly, took it completely out, but to no avail -- Ghost would not run.

That leaves MaxPhysPage, but I have a bad feeling about that....

Edit:
Had some time to test out various MaxPhysPage settings:
1) Over 11,000 : just protection error in all cases I've tried
2) 10,001 to 11,000: 1001 ways Win98 can crash, and it was almost funny
3) 1580 to 10,000: Win98 normally boots fine, though at the lower end (under 80 meg or so) it may blue screen at some point for no apparent reason,
Ghost does not work when restarting to DOS mode
4) 1579 and less -- Ghost works!! (1000 = 16 meg is the lowest I've tried, though)
However, because of the amount of memory (~22 meg) Win98SE itself is somewhat unstable.

Does anyone has an explanation, or at least a theory why this is the case?

TIA

This post has been edited by aurgathor: 25 April 2012 - 02:01 PM

[submix8c]

?
I've used a Ghost v8 Bootable Floppy (PC-DOS version) with >1gb RAM and had no trouble. What version Ghost are you using?

BTW, you said "Restart in MS-DOS mode" - that's not the same as "Pressing F8 -> Select Command Prompt Only) (and you'll need some "patched" files, AFAICR). Have you applied ANY patches suggested on MSFN, other than those you mentioned? There's also a "SYSTEM.CB" for Safe Mode...

[aurgathor]

Once I install W2K (which is currently blocked ) I think I may no longer have the option to boot W98 into command mode because F8 will bring up the boot menu for W2K, not for Win98, although there may be a way to add a 3rd entry for the boot menu, a command mode only Win98, which could bypass this issue. (never tried it, so I don't know if it's possible)

Normally, after W2K is installed, I just boot into Win98, then restart into DOS mode to do the ghosting.

As I've mentioned in the 1st post, when booting from a floppy, Ghost works fine regardless of the amount of memory.

Aside from the standard MS stuff, the only 'patches' I currently have are: MD IE6SP1 and U98SESP3 (the last one is blocked due to blue screens)

[submix8c]

Did you look into the reply I gave in your other topic?

Grub4DOS may do the F8 trick (unsure). And you may be able to immediately press F8 after selecting 98SE from the Boot Menu.

[Sfor]

I just do not get it. The MaxPhysPage and MaxFileCache should not affect a pure DOS application, when GUI is not runnig.

As for the Windows 98 boot menu. Instalation of Windows 2000 does not mean there will be no windows 98 boot menu. In normal circumstances the Windows 98 boot menu appears after Windows 2000 boot menu. It just could be a bit difficult to hit F8 when necesary. In my case I do have Windows 98 menu forced through config.sys. But there is BootMenu=1 setting possibility in the msdos.sys, as well.

[dencorso]

The correct MaxPhysPage for 736 MiB is 2E000, but you *do NOT* need to set it, because you've got less than 1100 MiB. What you do have is a memory-greedy Video card, which is eating up most of your System Arena. This subject has been beaten to death recently here, but there are *numerous* other posts about it from before those, all around the 9x/ME forum, but they're almost all in the threads listed in the 1st post of that thread I just gave you a link to. Moreover, Ghost itself is a memory greedy program, the DOS version of it is made to be run under pure DOS (with just himem.sys loaded from the config.sys), not from what you reach after using "Restart in MS-DOS Mode", which is near, but not exactly pure DOS.

[aurgathor]

dencorso, on 26 April 2012 - 12:02 AM, said:

The correct MaxPhysPage for 736 MiB is 2E000, but you *do NOT* need to set it, because you've got less than 1100 MiB.

That is incorrect. I determined by trial and error that I *do* need to set MaxPhysPage.

But I did run another set of tests with the following settings, and got these - "results":
not set - CONFIGMG:
2E000 - CONFIGMG:
2C000 - CONFIGMG:
2A000 - CONFIGMG:
29000 - CONFIGMG
27000 - CONFIGMG
23000 - 0E @ 0167:BFF81804
21000 - 0E @ 0167:BFF81804
1E000 - CONFIGMG:
1C000 - CONFIGMG:
1B000 - hang in loop, then IOS:
1A000 - hang in loop, then IOS:
19000 - hang in loop, then IOS:
18000 - hang in loop, then IOS:
17000 - hang in loop, then IOS:
16000 - hang in loop, then IOS:
15000 - hang in loop, then IOS:
14000 - CONFIGMG:
13000 - hang in loop, then IOS:
12000 - hang in loop, then IOS:
11000 - Windows protection error.
10000 - boots and works
F000 - boots and works
[...]

CONFIGMG:
"While initializing device CONFIGMG:
Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer."

IOS:
"While initializing device IOS:
Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer."

hang in loop = boot display stuck on for 3 mins or more before hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del

Quote

What you do have is a memory-greedy Video card, which is eating up most of your System Arena.

What do you mean by memory greedy? I have a Diamond FireGL 1000 Pro with either 8 or 16 megs of memory, and AGP aperture set to 16 megs. The onboard video (32 meg) is disabled. (it *sucks*)

Quote

This subject has been beaten to death recently here, but there are *numerous* other posts about it from before those, all around the 9x/ME forum, but they're almost all in the threads listed in the 1st post of that thread I just gave you a link to.

I'll look into those threads, but if I remember correctly, chipset does make a difference in this respect, and some will allow more memory than others.

Quote

Moreover, Ghost itself is a memory greedy program, the DOS version of it is made to be run under pure DOS (with just himem.sys loaded from the config.sys), not from what you reach after using "Restart in MS-DOS Mode", which is near, but not exactly pure DOS.

That is mostly irrelevant. Ghost runs just fine:
1) if there's 512 meg or less physical memory in the system
2) with MaxPhysPage of 1000 to 1579 (and perhaps some other values)

[aurgathor]

Sfor, on 25 April 2012 - 07:56 PM, said:

I just do not get it. The MaxPhysPage and MaxFileCache should not affect a pure DOS application, when GUI is not runnig.

I think Ghost actually runs in graphics mode.

Quote

As for the Windows 98 boot menu. Instalation of Windows 2000 does not mean there will be no windows 98 boot menu. In normal circumstances the Windows 98 boot menu appears after Windows 2000 boot menu. It just could be a bit difficult to hit F8 when necesary. In my case I do have Windows 98 menu forced through config.sys. But there is BootMenu=1 setting possibility in the msdos.sys, as well.

I'll look into the boot menu issues later on.

[aurgathor]

dencorso, on 26 April 2012 - 07:23 PM, said:

Aurgathor, would you try some simple tests for my hipothesis?
Does your motherboard have onboard video or, if not, can you get hold of a nVidia GeForce 2 or later, but up to 4?
I'm pretty sure all your problems stem from how your video card uses memory in the System Arena.

I'm replying here since this is not really SP3 related.

I removed the FireGL 1000 Pro and enabled the onboard S3 Prosavage with 16 meg of memory.

11000 - Windows protection error
12000 - hang in boot loop, then IOS
13000 - hang in boot loop, then IOS
14000 - hang in boot loop, then IOS
15000 - hang in boot loop, then IOS
16000 - hang in boot loop, then IOS
18000 - hang in boot loop, then IOS
1A000 - hang in boot loop, then IOS
1C000 - just hang in boot (*no* loop)
1E000 - hang in boot loop, then IOS
20000 - hang in boot loop, then IOS
23000 - CONFIGMG
27000 - CONFIGMG

So the errors are definitely slightly different, but with respect to usability, the video card didn't make any difference.

[dencorso]

Thanks for testing!
So, the Diamond FireGL 1000 Pro can be put back in.
Next possibility is the ethernet card.
What ethernet card do you have in the machine? Or is it onboard? If so, then what's the motherboard's southbridge?

[rloew]

How big are your Registry files SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT?
Is your Ethernet Gigabit capable?

[aurgathor]

The Ethernet is an on-board VIA Rhine II (VT6103) and it is not gigabit capable.

The Southbridge is a VT8235.

System.dat: 5,885,984 bytes
User.dat: 286,752 bytes
Why, and how would they matter?

Major specs from http://download.asro...anual/K7VM2.pdf

Quote

1.2 Specifications
Platform: Micro ATX form factor (9.6" x 9.6")
CPU: Socket A (462 pins) for AMD AthlonTM / AthlonTM XP / DuronTM processor
Chipsets: North Bridge: VIA KM266, FSB@200/266 MHz, AGP4X
South Bridge: Supports USB 2.0, ATA 133
Clock Generator: 100 MHz - 200MHz
Memory: 2 slots for DDR: DIMM1 and DIMM2 (PC1600/ PC2100) Max. 2GB
2 slots for SDR: DIMM3 and DIMM4 (PC100/ PC133) Max. 2GB
IDE: IDE1: ATA 133 / Ultra DMA Mode 4
IDE2: ATA 133 / Ultra DMA Mode 4
Can connect up to 4 IDE devices
Floppy Port: Supports floppy disk drive
Audio: 2 channels AC’97 Audio
LAN: Speed: 802.3u (10/100 Ethernet), supports Wake-On-LAN

Apparently, which I didn't realize for a while, the removal of the Diamond FireGL did fix the isue with Ghost, which now runs just fine when I exit to DOS, regardless of the MaxPhysPage setting!!

Of course the memory limit was unchanged and still sucks, though I'm not using it for anything right now that would really benefit from the potential extra RAM.

This post has been edited by aurgathor: 27 April 2012 - 05:25 PM

[dencorso]

aurgathor, on 27 April 2012 - 01:40 PM, said:

Apparently, which I didn't realize for a while, the removal of the Diamond FireGL did fix the isue with Ghost, which now runs just fine when I exit to DOS, regardless of the MaxPhysPage setting!!

A-ha!
I bet the Diamond FireGL uses too much of the first 16 MiB of RAM, when it's in.

Now let's move on to the problem with the RAM:
Get memtest86+, create either the floppy or the bootable CD, boot from it and let it run 24h, no less.
After that, take a pic of the screen before getting out of memtest86+ and post it here, please.

[rloew]

aurgathor, on 27 April 2012 - 01:40 PM, said:

The Ethernet is an on-board VIA Rhine II (VT6103) and it is not gigabit capable.
System.dat: 5,885,984 bytes
User.dat: 286,752 bytes
Why, and how would they matter?

Gigabit Ethernet and large Registries can cause low memory problems that can make the system unstable. I have seen it manifest as crashes depending on MaxPhysPage in rather unexpected ways.
Try my RAM Limitation Patch Demo using the /M Option to see if it helps.

[submix8c]

@dencorso and @rloew - see this (last post). Apparently there WAS bad ram as well.

Case closed in both Topics. The OP should really mark these SOLVED...

[rloew]

submix8c, on 28 April 2012 - 07:39 PM, said:

@dencorso and @rloew - see this (last post). Apparently there WAS bad ram as well.

Case closed in both Topics. The OP should really mark these SOLVED...

Case closed for the other Topic. Probably for this one also.
For dencorso and me, a bit after the fact, as our Posts preceeded that Post.

[dencorso]

Problem is aurgathor posted all over the place. I saw that and reacted to it in yet another thread. I don't think it's bad RAM, really. My A7V600-X uses VIA KT600, which is one of the successors of the KM266. For the KT600, it's well documented that it can control 3 GiB DDR RAM at 333 MHz (which is how my board runs), but it will hardly POST at 400 MHz, although it'll run up to 2 GiB at 400 MHz. Then again, some KT600 sold are below par, so once I had another A7V600-X that needed to be set to 328 MHz at the most, in order to run stably (at 333 MHz it would work for some days, then crash randomly). But the RAM sticks were OK in that case, too, the problem is the Northbridge chokes when controlling so much RAM so fast. I'm not aware that a similar problem has been officially documented for the KM266, but since it's the same family of Northbriges, I believe we're seeing a manifestation of the same design flaw. Of course, I may be wrong.

[aurgathor]

My apologies for being away too long, but I was kinda busied out. While the W2K install topic is definitely closed, I'm still investigating the other two.

In this particular case, I went through several iterations.

First, I went from FireGL 1k to onboard video, that solved Ghost.

Later, went from 768 -> 512, that solved my W2K install

Then I went from 512 meg SDRAM to 2 GB DDR. Tthe onboard video and 98SE really had a hard time to cope with that much memory. I had to decrease MaxPhysPage to about 4000 (!!!) just to be even able to boot, yet the display was still royally messed up. (see attached img) That big black square in the PMTShoot window is the mouse cursor, BTW.

Then I went back to the FireGL 1k, and voila, everything, except Ghost started working. I could go to 48000 or so ( ) and the PC would boot and run 98SE and couple of programs I tried just fine!!

However, because of display artifacts probably related to the CPU downclocking, and the inability to run Ghost, I replaced it with a Matrox G450. That solved the artifacts and Ghost, but now I'm getting occasional low memory bluescreens and lockups.

So this is definitely a work in progress, and I'm actually thinking of a completely different way to solve my ghosting issue. In yet another thread, of course.

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This post has been edited by aurgathor: 29 April 2012 - 01:33 AM