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Windows For Workgroups 3.11 - Conflict Issue?

creepingnet

creepingnet

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Joined
Feb 25, 2005
Messages
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Location
Reno, NV
Right now, I'm trying to figure something rather weird out with my 486 box, it seems there is a conflict between the network card and video memory, but I'm not quite sure how to resolve it.

The Symptoms to this issue are that when I try to access the internet from Windows For Workgroups 3.11 using IE4, or try to access my network files, the screen starts to show a big nasty mess of pixels for about the first 100 scanlines down, and sometimes will eventually hang the system. Funny thing is all is perfectly fine under Windows 95 OSR2, go figure (which I'm typing from at this moment).


System Specifications
ASUS 486 Socket 3 Motherboard with VLB
I 80486 DX4/100 CPU
48 MB of RAM
RealTek RTL8019 PnP LAN Adapter
Cirrus Logic CL GD-5429 Video Display Adapter, 1MB VRAM
 
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Where I worked in the 80/90's, we would see memory conflicts happening with certain LAN boards that contained RAM.
Details follow on what we found with the 'SMC Ethercard Plus - Elite 16' board. Maybe your problem can be fixed in the same way.

Code: 
MEMORY MANAGERS

When a computer with one of these LAN boards fitted is powered on, the RAM
on the board is disabled until the board is accessed in some way, eg. by a
packet driver.
This presents a problem if a memory manager program is loaded by CONFIG.SYS
or AUTOEXEC.BAT because at the time the memory manager is loaded, the
RAM on the LAN board is disabled.  Thus, the memory manager will use the area
of memory that will be used later by the LAN board.  If this happens,
unpredictable things will happen.
To get around this problem, you MUST let the memory manager know that it
can't use the area of memory that will be later occupied by the RAM on the
LAN board.   With DOS5 and DOS6's EMM386.EXE, this is done with the 'X='
option.  For example, if the LAN board is set for a starting RAM address of
CC000, use:

	DEVICE=\ . . . .\EMM386.EXE  . . . .   X=CC00-CFFF



WINDOWS 3

When Windows starts, it searches for vacant areas of memory in the 640k to 1Mb
range for it's use.  
For most computers in xxxxxxxx, this isn't a problem because by the time
Windows starts, either IPX or some sort of packet driver has been loaded
and the RAM on the LAN board will consequently be enabled.  Windows will
see the RAM and not use that area of memory.

For some computers there is a problem.   It has been noted that on some
computers, Windows only sees about a half of the RAM on the LAN board.
This can be seen by running Microsoft Diagnostics (MSD.EXE) which is
supplied with Windows and DOS6.
For these computers, you must tell Windows that it can't use the area of
memory that the LAN board uses.  To do this, edit the SYSTEM.INI file,
locate the section titled [386Enh] and add the following line to the section:

	EMMExclude=CC00-CFFF
 
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Oooooo, GOOD CALL! I'm sure that's it! I remember having to do those dreaded EXCLUDES all the time back in the (not so) glorious DOS memory manager days.
 
Well, I've been fiddling some more, found another weird one, if I try to change to certain bitmaps from the Control Panel in WFWG, it seems that has a part in crashing it, I think I know what it is now, an incompatability between my network adapter and my NIC, both are pretty strange and cheap looking beasts (the video card especially). I also found that the card is acting PnP in WFWG, and there's no way around that problem shockingly enough, I've tried 4 different RTL 8019 drivers so far, and all lead me to the same conclusion, it's QEMM 9.0 time. I'll see how this works out.

Windows 95 OSR2 showed something interesting as well, it said that the addresses given to the device were not within the device's range, however, it still works, go figure. I apparently have a strange ability to get my hands on very weird behaving hardware that's for sure, right up there with the TGUI 9440 PCI graphics card that defaults at 85 Hz refresh, to the Floppy COntroller inside my XT that can read off of modern 1.44MB Floppies, go figure.
 
Well, QEMM did'nt do much for it either....grrrr.

I pulled out the card and found it has a TON of jumpers on it, and while it's clearly marked what the jumpers do, none of the settings themselves are on the card (oh how helpful). I've been through TH-99 for about 4 hours now and have'nt found a single card like it yet....

Could it be that the jumpers are listed in binary (like each slot represents a 0 or 1, and the total amount of pins equates to the number of bits). I dunno, I'm going to experiment around with it for awhile though, and see if I can force it into a NON PnP mode and get it to work like my old trusty SMC EtherCard plus.
 
Well, I've figured out (kinda sorta) what the problem is, the video display adapter I was using seems to have been having some odd conflict with the NIC, I'm not sure what kind, but seeing as it's going to be more of a headache than it's worth, I just swapped it out with a regular ol' ISA SVGA card for now. Maybe the VLB card required an IRQ or strange memory address...who knows.
 
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