🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <RMcgLDAgB6ZxEw26@adhoc.demon.co.uk>, Tim Stannard
<Tim@adhoc.demon.co.uk> writes
>DESCRIPTION:
>
>486dx2/66, 8Mb, System running W4WG 3.11 intermittantly crashes with a
>variety of GPFs.
>
>Checkit v3 and NDIAGS will crash the system doing a memory test if
>EMM386.EXE is loaded in the config.sys, but will report all memory OK if
>EMM386 not loaded.
>
>Winprobe(v4) does NOT report any memory errors so long as Smartdrv is
>not loaded. With smartdrv loaded the system crashes when I begin the
>memory tests.
>
>The system has an AWARD BIOS and all memory addresses are set to default
>in setup. 
>

I, too, was stumped by this when testing customer PCs until I found it's
caused by DOS being loaded high/umb, and the Checkit memory test stamps
all over the UMB area and the high DOS, causing the PC to reboot or
hang.

Hit F5 when "Starting MS-DOS" appears and see if the problem goes away.
I presume that when DOS is loaded low Checkit knows how to avoid jumping
all over it.

As for the GPFs, I'd look at the display driver first (substitute the
standard VGA driver), replace the memory, and, if the GPFs still appear,
replace the hard disk and perform an installation of standard DOS and
Windows from floppies onto a clean drive. You have checked for viruses?

If you do all that and the GPFs still appear, I'd try a replacement
motherboard. I find that running Ami Pro seems to bring out intermittent
memory faults quite well (Windows gives a Parity Check error on the Blue
Screen of Death <tm>).

-- 
Mike Tomlinson
constructive email to mike@jasper.demon.co.uk; flames to /dev/null.