Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!plains!gus
From: gus@plains.NoDak.edu (jim gustafson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.desqview
Subject: Re: DV386 HOROR STORIES?
Message-ID: <10913@plains.NoDak.edu>
Date: 21 Jun 91 06:52:34 GMT
Organization: North Dakota State University  Fargo, ND
Lines: 49

In article <1991Jun20.175049.7921@news.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes:
>
> Optimize would freeze my machine, by attempting to LOADHI the diskcache
> I am using (Norton's ncache-f).  Fortunately it would freeze immediately
> after a suggestive message, so I caught on to this problem.  Trying this
> manually led to the same thing --- ncache just wouldn't work in high
> memory.  But wait...  Horror story?  How about...  I can now load ncache
> high.  I don't know what changed, I don't know what if anything I did, I
> don't know why it didn't work before.  I live in dread of waking up one
> day to find that it has stopped working again :(
>
> Also --- it probably took me 3-4 weeks of almost random fussing before I
> hit on a combination of parameters (and usage habits) that doesn't cause
> frequent Exception 13 errors or frozen keyboards.  Now that I'm there,
> I'm quite happy; but Yow! what a headache getting there.

Thanks for sharing your stress factor.  I have good news to report...
after several kind net people sent me horrific stories to encouragement me
in my quest for DV bliss, I hacked and fiddled a bit more, and voila`,
QEMM and DV-386 are now actually functional (sort of :).

For those whose lives have been blessed by an uneventful A:INSTALL, etc.,
let me just remark that my problems disappeared once I hit on the following
strategy: exclude ALL memory above 640, then incrementally try to add back
small chunks.  device=c:\qemm\qemm386 x=a000-ffff

By following this approach and using a vanilla configuration, I discovered 
that as long as I forced the page frame into a000-affff and didn't try to 
loadhi, I could get DV up and running.  

I think one key ingredient to success was the "mutter factor".  Unless a 
sufficient degree of fussing, muttering, and general dispepsia is detected 
by an undocumented "feature" of QEMM and DV, these programs just won't behave 
themselves, period.

Now that my boat floats, I expect that I can look forward to paying my dues 
for several weeks to come as I try to bring up a multi-megabyte disk cache, 
and discover the true meaning of Exception #13 (only /one/ so far, but what
would you expect from a loadhi weenie?).

Anyway, a generous "thank you" to those who poked their fingers into the 
holes of my leaking dingie before I lost my otherwise semi-displaced FRAME 
of mind.

-- Jim.
-- 
Jim Gustafson  <><		UUCP:     uunet!plains!gus
North Dakota State University 	Bitnet:	  gus@plains
Fargo, North Dakota 58105	Internet: gus@plains.nodak.edu