Return-Path: Received: from [192.168.1.22]) by mail. (Weasel v1.20) for ; 28 Mar 2001 01:00:40 From: "Digest" To: "OS/2GenAu Digest" Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 01:00:40 +1100 (EDT) Reply-To: "OS2GenAu" Priority: Normal X-Mailer: CASMailer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: No.13 Message-ID: <200103280000.000029G6atmail.> Date:- 28 March 2001 1==================================== From: "Ian Manners" Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 04:10:39 +1000 (EST) Subject: [os2genau] RAM, Thread, what ever problem. Hi Craig Dongggg I've had someone bring in an IBM 6482-X6F (Desktop) 486DX4-100 PC, about two months ago, with a similar type of problem, so tonight, I took my spare IBM 6492-X6F (Tower) 486DX4-100 PC out of the cupboard identical MB, same model No., and rev, still with a 540Mb HD with OS/2 v4 FP13 loaded, a replacement dump file but still using the clock2.sys file that comes wiht FP13, fired it up, perfect. So I took the RAM, CPU, and HD out and put it in this problem PC, sometimes it loads, sometimes not, ratio of 6 failures out of 10 cold boots. Never makes it to a full desktop but the mouse always works, sometimes it stops loading before the drivers have finished loading, never at the same driver. Use a can of freeze, and a hair dryer on the M/B, no difference. Reflashed the BIOS in the 6482, , replaced the clock2.sys file, replaced the raiser PCB, and swapped the P/S over out of a known good 6482 I use as a nameserver, same fault ! Put a Windows 95 240Mb H/D in it, go thought the normal windows rubbish about HW etc, seems to work fine !! Put the OS/2 HD in, nope, same problem, sometimes boots ok, other times it boots, give me the blue desktop screen, them wammo, mouse works, nothing else. Took two of the SIMMS out, same thing, swapped the simms still in with the other two, and check the SIMM sockets with a socket tester, nope, same thing. Run my trusty old 64xx VP diags disk, passed with flying colours, including the video test. Put the OS/2 HD, RAM, CPU etc back in the 6492, works perfectly. Guess I wont be using this 6482 as a spare Name Server :-( And yes, I did change the jumpers, and all leads, and the battery ! All I can think of with this PC, is the RAM timing must be different just enough to push OS/2 over the edge on this M/B. I'll take the M/B out of the case tomorrow, and see if there is anything physically wrong but somehow I doubt it, between the IBM BIOS and IBM VP Diag tests, I dont think it leaves much untested. Checkit also says there is nothing wrong, as does my old ISA Diag board. Unfortunetly, I have no way at present to check the crystal on the M/B. Just some food for thought :-) 2==================================== From: "Steve Edmonds" Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 11:12:39 +1200 (NZST) Subject: Re: [os2genau] server power consumption The Dell poweredge 1400, 1x P3 866, 1x 8.7G 10k rpm scsi disk, + 2 pci additional cards. Peak power was starting X, ~92 W. Checked this against my ibm 686, 233 Mhz which is 140 W. steve _______________ Steve Edmonds Steve71atattglobal dot net 3==================================== Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 09:43:52 +1000 From: Daryl Pilkington Subject: Re: [os2genau] server power consumption Thanks Steve, This is exactly the sort of info I was asking. Being a "least effort" person, I didn't really want to go around to 1/2 dozen computers with a wattmeter/voltmeter/ammeter, . Just goes to show, the power consuption of PCs is not negligible, even with the monitor off. Looks like your Dell has a much more efficient PSU, lower power HDD etc. Based on the hardware spec, one would expect the IBM 686 to use less power than the Dell! Now lets see: 0.14 * (24 * 365) * 0.0938 = (1) (2) (3) (1) hourly energy use, 0.14kWh (2) period, 24 h/day, 365 days/year (3) Electricity cost, $0.0938 kWh Your IBM 686 uses $115 electricity/year. Your Dell uses $76 electricity/year. Lets look at a sensible usage in a SOHO, for a workstation, ie it can be turned-off when not in use. Now most newer equipment has power-management as standard, but their are many people who have a lot of older equipment that is still quite servicable, but has little or no power management. Due to turn-on surges stressing electrical equipment when it is switched-on, it is *not* a good idea to constantly turn on & off equipment, but once or twice a day isn't going to hurt it. Now if you're a forgetful person, why not schedule an automatic shutdown of your computer & put one of those $25 electronic timers on the power-board so all your peripherals, (printer, scanner...) get switched-off too. Switch on at start of work: 8:00 Switch off at bedtime: 23:00 This represents a 15/24 duty cycle. Your IBM now only uses 15/24 * 115 = $72 Steve Edmonds wrote: > > The Dell poweredge 1400, 1x P3 866, 1x 8.7G 10k rpm scsi disk, > + 2 pci additional cards. > Peak power was starting X, ~92 W. > Checked this against my ibm 686, 233 Mhz which is 140 W. > > steve > _______________ > Steve Edmonds > Steve71atattglobal dot net -- Regards, Daryl Pilkington //// The PC Therapist, Business Computing Integration O OS/2 Warp, Redhat Linux, DB2 IBM Certified Systems Expert email: darylpatpc-therapist dot com dot au ICQ: 91914134 Tel: +61-2-8902-1300 Mob: +61-425-251-300 Mob SMS: 0425251300.0000atorangenet dot com dot au (120 characters max, send no carriage returns) 4==================================== Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 14:43:21 +1000 From: Ed Durrant Subject: Re: [os2genau] more real I presume your're running RP8 via Odin ? I've been trying to get it working, with mixed results and would be interested how you installed it. As for not being able to contact the server, perhaps you are using a proxy server with your ISP ? I'm pretty sure there's a way to configure this in RP but best is if you can sockify the whole TCP stack, if socks is an option - in this case RP8 see's the internet directly. I know this made the difference when installing Apple Quicktime5 thru ODIN as this downloads most of the code from the internet. By the way this doesn't work through ODIN as it keeps saying the demo copy has expired when in fact it hasn't. However a JAVA version is included ...... Regards, Ed Durrant. Michael Block wrote: > another problem I have with Real Basic player v8 is that I > can't add new channels as I get an error message saying > that it can't contact the server. Is anyone else using Real > Player 8? > regards > > Michael Block > ---------------------------> Caca et declina medicus > > http://members.optushome dot com dot au/mblock/perinatal.html > The www home of perinatal psychiatry > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > To Subscribe/Unsubscribe please go to http://www.os2site.com/list/ > ============================================== 5==================================== Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 14:57:46 +1000 From: Ed Durrant Subject: Re: [os2genau] RAM, Thread, what ever problem. Ian, on your problem, I'd ask one thing - are the Memory Simms identical ? That is not only same speed and parity/non-parity but also same manufacturer. I remember similar problems back in the 386 and 486 days where mixing manufacturers components can cause this problem. Don't think that since both Simms have IBM lables on them, that they are the same. IBM, like all computer companies "rebadge" components. That'd be my read on your problems though. Oh yes and if there's a setting in the CMOS to set parity or non-parity, check this is correct. Ian Manners wrote: > Hi Craig > > Dongggg > > I've had someone bring in an IBM 6482-X6F (Desktop) 486DX4-100 PC, > about two months ago, with a similar type of problem, so tonight, > I took my spare IBM 6492-X6F (Tower) 486DX4-100 PC out of the cupboard > identical MB, same model No., and rev, still with a 540Mb HD with > OS/2 v4 FP13 loaded, a replacement dump file but still using the > clock2.sys file that comes wiht FP13, fired it up, perfect. 6==================================== From: "Ian Manners" Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 15:46:07 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: [os2genau] RAM, Thread, what ever problem. Hi Ed Actually, Craig, were are you exactly ? >Ian, on your problem, I'd ask one thing - are the Memory Simms identical ? That is >not only same speed and parity/non-parity but also same manufacturer. I remember >similar problems back in the 386 and 486 days where mixing manufacturers >components can cause this problem. Don't think that since both Simms have IBM >lables on them, that they are the same. IBM, like all computer companies "rebadge" >components. Its all the same brand and speed RAM, I've been in the industry long enough to develop my little "voodoo" habits :-) Misubishi RAM, I also tried Generic IBM RAM from the same batch. > That'd be my read on your problems though. Oh yes and if there's a setting in the >CMOS to set parity or non-parity, check this is correct. The RAM is all Full Parity, as this is the only type that fits these M/B's. I have had similar problems with a AS/400 in Kalgoorlie a few years ago, only it was to do with a tape changer controller, couldnt fault it but I ended up replacing the controller in the changer, as I came to the conclusion it just couldnt be anything else, lo, changing the controller worked. So in Craigs case, as he has already mentioned that he has swapped all the hardware over, if he can put his HD into another Pentium PC350, or PC300, and it works ok, I think I would call it quit's and say its the M/B, it is important that he does this last step though, if possible, as Craigs got an IBM email address, I would have thought it was possible ;-) I would (maybe wrongly) assume that Craig has already tried booting several times with all non essential cards removed. I do now that OS/2 is less forgiving of timing anomalys that Windows or Linux is, which is also why Dani's having problems with one VIA IDE chipset with her Dani drivers, and yet windows works fine. ie OS/2 has been built to a standard, shame about some of the hardware, and it is normal for crystals on M/B's to drift from there optimal speed over time, and considering this 6482 is almost 10 years old, thats to be expected. 7==================================== From: "Steve Edmonds" Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 22:45:26 +1000 (EST) Subject: [os2genau] ftpd Hi, thanks to Daryl my lpr printing is great. I have a problem that ftpd now doesn't work. I've left the info at work, but from memory. I had W4 with FP12, applied, not necessarrily in the following order but as instructed, 8610 980 8621 17??.exe from Germany. ftpd.exe was dated 1997 and is now dated 1999. (the 1997 one doesn't work now either) Is there a fix for the fix? steve _______________ Steve Edmonds Steve71atattglobal dot net 8==================================== From: "Michael Block" Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 20:58:41 +1100 (EST) Subject: Re: [os2genau] more real On Tue, 27 Mar 2001 14:43:21 +1000, Ed Durrant wrote: >I presume your're running RP8 via Odin ? I've been trying to get >it working, with mixed results and would be interested how you >installed it. I installed ir directly into OS/2 as win2000 (uncharacteristiclly) won't stay up for more than 2 minutes. Just installed it, the install crashed right at the end but it must have completed as it worked first time. > >As for not being able to contact the server, perhaps you are using >a proxy server with your ISP ? no, a direct connection thru optusathome I'm pretty sure there's a way to >configure this in RP but best is if you can sockify the whole TCP >stack, if socks is an option - in this case RP8 see's the internet >directly. > >I know this made the difference when installing Apple Quicktime5 >thru ODIN as this downloads most of the code from the internet. > >By the way this doesn't work through ODIN as it keeps saying the >demo copy has expired when in fact it hasn't. However a JAVA >version is included ...... > >Regards, >Ed Durrant. > >Michael Block wrote: > >> another problem I have with Real Basic player v8 is that I >> can't add new channels as I get an error message saying >> that it can't contact the server. Is anyone else using Real >> Player 8? >> regards >> >> Michael Block >> ---------------------------> Caca et declina medicus >> >> http://members.optushome dot com dot au/mblock/perinatal.html >> The www home of perinatal psychiatry >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To Subscribe/Unsubscribe please go to http://www.os2site.com/list/ >> ============================================== > >---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >To Subscribe/Unsubscribe please go to http://www.os2site.com/list/ >============================================== regards Michael Block ---------------------------> Caca et declina medicus http://members.optushome dot com dot au/mblock/perinatal.html The www home of perinatal psychiatry 9==================================== Subject: Re: [os2genau] RAM, Thread, what ever problem. From: "Craig Brookes" Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 21:59:11 +1000 > PC, sometimes it loads, sometimes not, ratio of 6 failures out of 10 > cold boots. Never makes it to a full desktop but the mouse always > works, sometimes it stops loading before the drivers have finished Yes, that makes my PC look good. Once mine get's a 'good' boot it's fine for weeks. > Run my trusty old 64xx VP diags disk, passed > with flying colours, including the video test. That is pretty nasty. > Just some food for thought :-) It might actually be a disappointment for me if I eventually get a new model PC before I find a fix for this problem. I have been working with this problem for over a year and a half now, and a new PC would remove my entertainment. Craig 10==================================== Subject: [os2genau] NS46DRAG.DLL loaded early From: "Craig Brookes" Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 22:02:25 +1000 Hello. A strange thing I noticed today was that NS46DRAG.DLL could not be renamed on my PC, even after I had just rebooted and netscape had not been started. OS/2 claimed that the DLL was in use by the system. Theseus showed it as a loaded file?! I could not see an obvious WPS class or something that would cause the DLL to be loaded independently of netscape. I had to reboot to ALT-F1 commandline to rename it. My other PCs were easy, I just shutdown netscape (or perhaps didn't start netscape after a boot) and I just went and renamed the DLL. ????? What was NS46DRAG.DLL doing loaded so early on? Well it's renamed now so I'll see if that helps my system be more stable. Bye Craig 11==================================== Subject: Re: [os2genau] RAM, Thread, what ever problem. From: "Craig Brookes" Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 22:29:36 +1000 > Actually, Craig, were are you exactly ? IBM Global Services in Perth. > if he can put his HD into another Pentium PC350, or PC300, > and it works ok, I think I would call it quit's > as Craigs got an IBM email address, I would have thought > it was possible ;-) I can possibly talk to someone who might have an old spare drive to suit my machine, and I can put that into my box as drive 2, copy across all the data, toss the original drive in a drawer, switch the new drive to drive 1 C:\ and D:\, and see what happens. > I would (maybe wrongly) assume that Craig has already tried > booting several times with all non essential cards removed. Yep. Only extra card is a token-ring LAN card, and I've swapped it with another. I can't really run without a LAN card, as someone expects me to logon to some machines and do some work. I have had three boots today (booted to change config) with no indications of my problem... that is how it is. As this latest boot seems 'good' I might not shutdown until the weekend. Also, any comments on this? I changed MEMMAN to NOSWAP instead of SWAP to run without the SWAPPER file. It looked ok to start with... Theseus said that there was 90M free RAM after boot, and that the SWAPPER had 0 frames, etc, but for some strange reason Sysbar/2 was showing only about 9000kb free RAM. As I loaded a few things this amount ticked down to under 1000kb, although Theseus still showed 50-60M RAM free. Once Sysbar/2 got down to 0kb free the OS trapped with some kind of problem from LazyWrite complaining about no free memory. This seems pretty strange... not really what I expected to happen. Back to ALT-F1 commandline to change back to SWAP, and reboot back to the full OS/2. I have noticed that the SWAPPER is only 1M in size instead of the 128M requested in the CONFIG.SYS. I assume it had been deleted by OS/2 when I booted with NOSWAP, and now when I booted back with SWAP it may have looked at C: partition and decided that there is not enough space to create the 128M file and given me a 1M file???? I must admit I did dump a lot of files onto that partition last week so there wasn't a lot of spare room, but there was 132M free so it could have nearly made it fit... plus there should have been one large contiguous extent of 128M free space to use from the deleted SWAPPER file. I have to go and rebuild the SWAPPER sometime. It was the first file on that partition so it was 128M in one chunk. Lovely. Bit of a waste though as this 144M RAM machine didn't ever use too much of the swapper, and the total hard drive space on this PC is only 1.2 gig. Please note. This partition is 300M so that 128M SWAPPER sat there with it all to itself for months... so me dumping files into that partition and filling it up didn't cause my intermittant 'bad' boot problem that I have been suffering. (just in case you asked) Bye, Craig 12==================================== From: "Ian Manners" Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 23:23:23 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: [os2genau] RAM, Thread, what ever problem. Hi Craig >It might actually be a disappointment for me if I eventually get a new >model PC before I find a fix for this problem. I have been working with >this problem for over a year and a half now, and a new PC would remove my >entertainment. I know what you mean, I'm thinking of starting my consulting again, or sending my resume's out to get a "real" job, this server hosting stuff is a bit boring, I wonder if thats why company's do a lot of WinNT hosting ;-) Nothing worse than an illogical PC that will not let you fix it. Already sent my resume to NCR in Sydney (for Melbourne) tonight, so I'll ring Adrian or someone at IBM here in Melbourne to find out were I send one to IBM, I miss the ATM and banking stuff more than PC's though. Cheers Ian Manners 13==================================== Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 15:24:55 +0200 From: Kris Steenhaut Subject: Re: [os2genau] RAM, Thread, what ever problem. Craig Brookes schreef: > Also, any comments on this? > > I changed MEMMAN to NOSWAP instead of SWAP to run without the > SWAPPER file. It looked ok to start with... Sure it is ... > Theseus said that > there was 90M free RAM after boot, and that the SWAPPER had 0 > frames, etc, Quite right. > but for some strange reason Sysbar/2 was showing only > about 9000kb free RAM. Not that strange at all. Sysbar and most other tools (memsize etc...) rely on the presence of a swapper.dat to calculate the free available memory. To put it blunt, tools like that aren't quite reliable. > down to under 1000kb, although Theseus still showed 50-60M RAM free. As it should do. > > Once Sysbar/2 got down to 0kb free the OS trapped with some kind of > problem from LazyWrite complaining about no free memory. Sysbar/2 trapped the os coz no swapper.dat. Known "feature" > This seems pretty strange... not really what I expected to happen. > Well, now you know. :=) > > Back to ALT-F1 commandline to change back to SWAP, and reboot back > to the full OS/2. I have noticed that the SWAPPER is only 1M in > size instead of the 128M requested in the CONFIG.SYS. I assume it > had been deleted by OS/2 when I booted with NOSWAP, No, no way ... > and now when I > booted back with SWAP it may have looked at C: partition and decided > that there is not enough space to create the 128M file and given me > a 1M file???? > Sure the 1 Mb swapper.dat isn't marked read-only? > waste though as this 144M RAM machine didn't ever use too much of the > swapper, Quite right. Running Noswap for almost two years here, and sure it is I'm not going to restore the damned thing. > Please note. This partition is 300M so that 128M SWAPPER sat there with > it all to itself for months... so me dumping files into that partition My advise is: as Ram is cheap these days, just put in an additional 64 Mb and change to Memman=NoSwap. -- Groeten uit Gent, Kris 14==================================== From: "Ian Manners" Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 00:00:34 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: [os2genau] RAM, Thread, what ever problem. Hi Craig >> Actually, Craig, were are you exactly ? > >IBM Global Services in Perth. Shame I won't be back in Perth for a few months, sounds like a real test. I lived and worked in Kalgoorlie until I became a Family Law Court refuge. >I can possibly talk to someone who might have an old spare drive >to suit my machine, and I can put that into my box as drive 2, >copy across all the data, toss the original drive in a drawer, >switch the new drive to drive 1 C:\ and D:\, and see what happens. I fairly quick way. >> I would (maybe wrongly) assume that Craig has already tried >> booting several times with all non essential cards removed. > >Yep. Only extra card is a token-ring LAN card, and I've swapped it >with another. I can't really run without a LAN card, as someone >expects me to logon to some machines and do some work. Very understandable, I've never had a problem with Token-ring cards, not the ones the ANZ were using anyway. >I have had three boots today (booted to change config) with no >indications of my problem... that is how it is. As this latest >boot seems 'good' I might not shutdown until the weekend. Yep, good luck, I both love and hate faults like this, love on my own stuff, hate them on customers gear. >Also, any comments on this? > >I changed MEMMAN to NOSWAP instead of SWAP to run without the >SWAPPER file. It looked ok to start with... Theseus said that >there was 90M free RAM after boot, and that the SWAPPER had 0 >frames, etc, but for some strange reason Sysbar/2 was showing only >about 9000kb free RAM. As I loaded a few things this amount ticked >down to under 1000kb, although Theseus still showed 50-60M RAM free. I wouldnt rely on what any other program apart from Theseus, or SysInfo (Which uses Theseus) to be accurate unless you have a swap file. >This seems pretty strange... not really what I expected to happen. Logical and correct. >Once Sysbar/2 got down to 0kb free the OS trapped with some kind of >problem from LazyWrite complaining about no free memory. Sounds like its something to do with Sysbar/2, try unloading it. >Back to ALT-F1 commandline to change back to SWAP, and reboot back >to the full OS/2. I have noticed that the SWAPPER is only 1M in >size instead of the 128M requested in the CONFIG.SYS. I assume it >had been deleted by OS/2 when I booted with NOSWAP, and now when I OS/2 just leaves the swap file there, it needs to be manually deleted, so setting NOSWAP wont zap it, probably to do with disk space. >booted back with SWAP it may have looked at C: partition and decided >that there is not enough space to create the 128M file and given me >a 1M file???? If there is not enough space for the requested swap file size, yes, this is what it does, it will then grow as needed. >I must admit I did dump a lot of files onto that partition last week >so there wasn't a lot of spare room, but there was 132M free so it >could have nearly made it fit... plus there should have been one large >contiguous extent of 128M free space to use from the deleted SWAPPER >file. I have to go and rebuild the SWAPPER sometime. It was the first >file on that partition so it was 128M in one chunk. Lovely. Bit of a >waste though as this 144M RAM machine didn't ever use too much of the >swapper, and the total hard drive space on this PC is only 1.2 gig. 144Mb would be borderline, for continues use, I would still use a swap file, I personally dont use one but then my PC's a fully loaded IBM Netfinity, all SCSI :-) >Please note. This partition is 300M so that 128M SWAPPER sat there with >it all to itself for months... so me dumping files into that partition >and filling it up didn't cause my intermittant 'bad' boot problem that >I have been suffering. (just in case you asked) No, cant see that happening unless the swap file is resizing over bad blocks. Cheers Ian Manners End==================================== List Admin Note: The format of the digest will be changing in the next few weeks or so, to allow easier reading, the codings just a bit more difficult but thank you for bearing with me.