Small problem with new p4 systems

[Ncogneto]

Ok, my office just upgraded all their workstations with p4 1.8 gig systems. All seems well except that while running one particular program that runs in a dos window we expeirance frequent lockups. The particular program in question is an accounting program, and changing software would be a nightmare. I am wondering if this is some kind of timing issue or perhaps even graphics related ( program seems to be stable if the dos window is not in full screen mode but once it is maximized to full screeen the problem surfaces ). Turning the hardware acceleration off seems to help a bit but not cure the problem. The old systems were of the pentium mmx flavor. the current OS is win2k. Any ideas?

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[spud]

Did you enable the FPU Microcode thingy in the BIOS by chance?

-Jeremy

<font color=blue>Just some advice from your friendly neighborhood blue man </font color=blue>

 

[FatBurger]

When you say the problem surfaces when the program is maximised, do you mean literally maximised, or full-screen?

<font color=blue>Hi mom!</font color=blue>

 

[scamtrOn]

two different things you can do: one is to upgrade video drivers. if that doesn't work you might have to change the video card. i'm 90% sure its a vga problem. the best way to make sure of that with out spending hours on it is to buy a $40 geforce2 gts card. $40 is with every thing included.

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[Ncogneto]

The card that is in it is a gforcemx 200, 3d is not a consideration. We have temporarily uninstalled it, and as a temp fix installed 2-4 meg pci cards and the problem seems to have disapeared. Before this change the latest video drivers were installed. I am thinking it has something to do with an older dos program and agp cards in general. It would be a shame to have to cripple the system in order to run one program. Any ideas?

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[Ncogneto]

Yes I meant to say when run in full screen mode.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[scamtrOn]

well it seems that you know what you are doing, so there are few thing you can do tho see if you can fix this problem: update mobo bios and vid card bios. disable fastwrite in bios along with any other enhancing mods in the bios.

i'm starting to think that this has something to do with 2d support.

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[rickd59]

If your office is like mine, they tremendously overpaid for crappy systems that just happened to have all the buzzwords that purchasers in accounting recognize (1.8 GHz P4....probably 423-pin!, 256MB RAM...probably PC100, 30 GB HDD...probably 5400 spin, and loads of other crap). Crappy systems have crappy drivers and reliability, and this leads to problems which lead to downtime. The problems also require support, which costs money, which eventually adds up to cost more than a decent (but cost-effective system) would have cost in the first place. Besides, if they updated their hardware why don;t the cheap bastards upgrade their software to something that has windows in it? I'm not hammering you, our office does the same thing, just wondering why people with power will spend 1000's of dollars on business trips every month but get crappy systems which we use everyday....I can't tell you how many of our Compaq system's hard drive fail each year, but on a floor of about 75 people, I bet they lose at least one a week.....there's something really, really wrong with that picture.

-Rick

 

[Ncogneto]

First of all they are pretty decent systems. Intel OEM motherboards (I850) with 512 (2x256) Rdram, socket 478 ( albeit still willy's),and 40 gig 7200 Seagate barracudas. The Graphic cards are a bit of a let down but these machines are never going to see any 3d anyway so more than suffice. While not an Intel fan I give the guys credit, these machines were built with stability in mind. Price wasn't too bad either costing around 1 grand each ( this included setup and transfer of files from the older machines).

As far as upgrading the software there is an old saying...if it aint broke don't fix it. Buying a accounting software suit worth its wares that can be run off of a network server supporting 5 workstations isn't that cheap. But thats not even half of it, re-training the 5 employees that would use it and converting the 5 years or more of files from the old software over to new software would be quite costly and more importantly time consuming.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[piasabird]

I use the $48.0 VisionTek Geforce2 GTS-V (OEM) 32 mb ddr video card I purchased from www.newegg.com. This is an excellent video card for the price. The Geforce GTS-V chip is excellent. I installed the card in about 5 minutes.

 

[piasabird]

sometimes DOS programs are tricky and need extended memory instead of virtual memory like windows likes to use. I use to compensate for this by using a shortcut to call the program and then using the shortcut properties to set the extended memory options. Also there may be some option that has to be turnded on to allow Win2K to use extended memory.

 

[Ncogneto]

Yeah we have played around with those options, as well as editing the registry to allow for use of extended memory. it is possible we are missing something but that would not explain why the program can work ust fine with a pci card.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[FatBurger]

What OS were you using on the old computers? Was it W2k then too?

<font color=blue>Hi mom!</font color=blue>

 

[Ncogneto]

No. But then again they didn't have agp cards either. p200mmx box's running 98se and NT.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[piasabird]

This wouldnt be the first time win2k had problems with DOS programs. We still use win98 SE and Novel Netware.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

This wouldnt be the first time win2k had problems with DOS programs. We still use win98 SE and Novel Netware.

This wouldn't be the first time that <i>any</i> version of Windows at or after Win95 has had problems with DOS programs. The day that MS started 'emulating' DOS instead of actually running a fully-fledged version of DOS is the day that these programs started their need to be upgraded to Win32 console apps (or better).

I miss DOS.

<pre><font color=orange><b>du hast den Sweater verkehrt an</b></font color=orange>
Oh my!</pre><p>

 

[Kelledin]

Ummm...just out of curiosity...what is this accounting program?

I had similar problems with Windows 98 and a certain accounting app. Part of the problem was that Win98 doesn't support the services provided by share.exe very well at all. Win95, WinNT, and Win2K support the services just fine (don't know about WinME or WinXP).

My solution was to switch the workstation to Win2K and enable some share.exe mojo and other stuff in autoexec.nt/config.nt.

<pre>We now <b>return</b>(<font color=blue>-1</font color=blue>) to an irregular program scheduler.</pre><p><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by kelledin on 05/17/02 01:28 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Ncogneto]

The program was working fine in 98. But two things have changed the os ( from 98se to 2k) and the computrs themselves. It appears to be more of a hardware issue as I have stated installing pci cards have solved the problem as a temp fix. The software is champion accounting controller.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[scamtrOn]

ok here is one thing you can do to fix this problem.

if possible replace all the nvidia cards with ati cards. from what i have read here it seems the problem is with the memory bandwith in 3D or 2D programs.

before you do this, go to DX and do the D3D and the openGL tests. both of them should pass with the nvidia card. if not then its another problem and ATI cards would do the same thing.

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[Ncogneto]

Trust me there is nothing wrong withthe cards themselves. It has to do with the DOs program and any agp card in general. What i need is perhaps an OS ( win2k) specific workaround that would make the cards compatable with the program in question.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[scamtrOn]

yes, a different OS could be the answer as it would also have different drivers for the AGP.

you are right, there never was any thing wrong with the cards, but like you said compatibility. i have seen this before, and one of the ways to fix it is to change the cards.

i was reading your post, and saw that you have more than one computer and there for your office... so much for my advice.

<b>can you take one of the HDDs from the old computer and put it in the new one? you'll probably have to install some drivers, but leave the other HDD in there, all the drivers you need should be in the system23 dir.

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[Ncogneto]

The problem lies in the way newer implementations of Windows ( ie. later than 98se) run dos programs. I can through all the drivers I want to at it but it won't make a difference in DOS or a DOS shell. The HDD trick is pointless as we would prefer to run 2k over 98SE. Kelledin is on the right track however.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Ncogneto on 05/17/02 06:11 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[rickd59]

Ncogneto,

I'm not trying to be a wise-a$$, but how much money did your company save by now being out of the water with their accounting software for 'x' number of weeks.....all of the troubleshooting that you and your peers are putting into this problem could have been prevented by staying current with more recent versions. I'm not picking on you, I just see this all the time with my company, and it kills me.....they save $50-100/box, and then dump tons of money back into fixing problems with hardware and software. Either way, good luck.

-Rick

 

[jihiggs]

tried changing from agp 4x to 2x? or 2x to <gasp> 1x? tried adjusting the resolution and color depth? tried ms drivers vs oem drivers?

how do you shoot the devil in the back? what happens if you miss? -verbal

 

[lhgpoobaa]

im not suprised your having problems

a DOS program designed for early pentium type machines, running at superfast speeds in an OS that really isnt DOS friendly at all.

disable as much 3d stuff in the bios as possible, disable hardware acceleration, and check the dos box attributes as well, try changing how memory is managed etc.

goodluck

My Next Performance System!!! - P4 Celleron, 128k cache, SDRAM, Integrated graphics, 5400rpm HDD!