Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!gmiller From: gmiller@udel.edu (Gregory Miller) Newsgroups: comp.sys.laptops Subject: Re: Zenith SupersPort 286 and Expanded Memory Message-ID: <34540@nigel.ee.udel.edu> Date: 25 Oct 90 12:54:17 GMT References: <05PS02gG03t901@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> Sender: cranor@ee.udel.edu Organization: University of Delaware Lines: 37 Nntp-Posting-Host: dewey.udel.edu In article <05PS02gG03t901@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> jdg00@amail.amdahl.com (Josh Grosse) writes: >This 286 machine was shipped with only 1 Meg of RAM. As far as I >am able to determine, I can get access to memory beyond MS-DOS >conventional memory only as expanded memory. I can configure >conventional and expanded as 640K/256K, or 512K/384K. When I >setup the computer with the memory as extended, it is unaddressable. > >I would like to be able to address that extra 1/4 megabyte as extended, >so that I could use MS-Windows, which needs the 256K as extended rather >than as expanded. I also have had problems using the memory above 640K on a Supersport 286 with 1 Meg of RAM. I had no luck in configuring it as extended RAM, (it says "No extended RAM installed, or some such complaint) and when I tried to use it as expanded, I had very flaky results. I installed the expanded memory manager as instructed, but each time I booted the machine, it told me that I had a different amout of expanded RAM installed: anywhere from 256K to 889K! I was able to put a RAM Disk (VDISK) in the expanded RAM, and copy files to it, but the size of the RAM disk reported by the system depended on the amount of expanded RAM the that machine decided it happened to have on that particular booting of the system. I spoke to 2 different Zenith service centers. The first said that it sounds like I have a flaky motherboard ($800, warranty is expired), but the other told me that the memory between 640K and 1 Meg is inaccessable, and was never intended to be used (by the user, it's possible that ROM software uses it). Can anybody shed some light in this? Thanks, Greg (with only 640K) -- "So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish" Greg Miller CIS Dept. University of Delaware gmiller@udel.edu