unrelated, but you have huge stacks. Do you really need 64*512 =32 kb stackspace ? (try 0,0 (dos 3.2+) or 9,128 (dos 3.1-))

An interesting thing showed up years ago with VDMS: the more onboard addons or extension cards the higher the possibility that those take up precious higher memory. So if possible try to disable stuff like onboard scsi etc...

Check your BIOS about everything that is related of RAM configuration in the 640 kB to 1 MB range. Also check Fast Gate A20 f.e. and consider expansion cards mapping into this area.
It is already odd that QEMM get's stuck.
I guess you tried even qsetup / setup qemm for troubleshooting?
The results might tell you something about the issue. Oh and QEMMs optimize reconstructs the previous config by itself, no need to replace yourself. The notice in the colored box usually says, just restart if it freezes.

Upper memory can be pretty tricky. Probably what you want to do first is to get a list of everything loaded into the first meg of memory.

UMBPCI, maybe?

I'm running an i865PE board with a Pentium 4 Prescott at 3.2 GHz, could Hyper Threading be causing any of this (highly unlikely in my opinion, but someone here might know better!) ?
I've disabled most onboard stuff, like Audio, Game and Midi Port, Parallel and Serial Port... I've got a shit ton of cards in there though:

6600GT AGP
SB Live
Aureal Vortex 2
Voodoo 3 PCI

I'll photograph exactly what mem /c /p gives me and post it on here (that's one way to see exactly what is loaded on the first MB of memory, right Anonymous Coward?). Getting DOS to work properly ain't really that important on this machine (I play most DOS games through DOSBox anyway), but I figured I'd do it just for chuckles and listening to Vortex 2 weird adlib music (some might say absurd, I prefer different, Doom and Elite II certainly give out interesting examples 😜 ).

By the way, the version of QEMM I tried was version 7.5 which I installed through Win98. Did a couple of restarts and then it just stuck on the loading screen. I went step by step to see exactly where it got stuck and found out it stopped when trying to load the first line in config.sys. It was QEMM related obviously, but I'm not really knowledgable on QEMM, never tried it before.

I'd rather use JEMM from freedos than qemm anyway. Especially nice with some of the special drivers they that can be loaded in protected mode so they don't really take up any low memory anymore. Of course any decent dos machine comes with some menuitem's in their config.sys as well.

Try UMBPCI, I think it works on 865 chipsets. As a HIMEM replacement I can recommend XMGR. Both use virtually no memory compared to microsoft's ancient crap.

F2bnp wrote:

I'll photograph exactly what mem /c /p gives me

What about..
MEM /C > MEM.TXT
😉

You could try disabling EMS if you don't need it. EMS emulation uses lots of memory.

And could you post your autoexec.bat and config.sys before and after running memmaker? I recently had a DOS memory problem, and memmaker really helped me make more conventional memory.

You could also use msd to see which UMBs are free and which are not, which device driver are loaded, and so on.

Hiya, F2bnp... try the following :

Remove the "AUTO" parameter from both the DEVICE=EMM386... and DOS=HIGH...

And if you are taking photos, and if you have the MSD.EXE (MicroSoft Diagnostics), also take a photo of the memory screen, both when the emm device loaded as well as without any devices loaded.

And also, it will be helpful if you can list the outputs of MEM/F command both when nothing loaded and all devices loaded.

Alright, I took some time and compiled this. It is my "new" configuration, after running memmaker, so I have uploaded the new autoexec.bat and config.sys configurations too. Hope it helps!
Thanks for all the help guys 😀

Well doesn't look completely wrong. EMM386 maps the EMS pageframe to D000 which is free, taking up the 64 kB that are available for sure. But it does not recover UMBs from C000-CFFF and E000-EFFF. Maybe some manual include helps.

Here's my configuration for comparison purposes:

Things in red were added by memmaker.

autoexec.bat:

SET CTCM=C:\CTCM
rem SET CTCM=C:\CTCM
echo off
rem C:\WIN3\net start
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
rem C:\CTCM\CTCU /S /W=C:\WINDOWS
SET MGA=C:\MGA\SETUP\
mode con codepage prepare=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)
mode con codepage select=850
LH keyb uk,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keyboard.sys
SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:G MODE:0

rem C:\SB16\AWEUTIL /S

rem SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\PROGRA~1\BORLAND\DELPHI5\BIN;C:\PROGRA~1\BORLAND\DELPHI5\PROJECTS\BPL

rem PATH=C:\WIN3;%PATH%

GOTO %config%

:Network
set screenthief=C:\st /com-
path=C:\win3;C:\network
C:\dos\power
LH /L:0 C:\windows\command\smartdrv.exe /v
LH /L:0;1,3312;2,42880 /S command /c C:\windows\dosstart.bat
rem C:\windows\CTCU /S /W=C:\WIN3
rem C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S /W=C:\WIN3
C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P
LH /L:0 command /c C:\windows\startnet.bat
goto end

:Minimal
C:\windows\command\MSCDEX.EXE /S /D:mscd001
set temp=C:\temp

:NoNetwork

:End

Config.sys:

[Menu]
menuitem=NoNetwork
menuitem=Network
menuitem=Minimal

[common]
;DEVICE=C:\CTCM\CTCM.EXE
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\himem.sys /testmem:off /cpuclock:off /machine:1 /v
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS HIGHSCAN I=B000-B7FF d=48 WIN=B300-B7FF
;DEVICE=C:\windows\command\smartdrv.exe /double_buffer
buffers=30,0
files=45
dos=UMB
LASTDRIVE=E
FCBS=4,0
switches=/f /e

DEVICEHIGH /L:2,17184 =C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(EGA,,1)
Country=044,850,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys

;devicehigh=C:\usbaspi.sys
;devicehigh=C:\di1000dd.sys
;device=C:\NETWORK\ifshlp.sys
;LASTDRIVE=Z
;DEVICE=C:\WIN3\SMARTDRV.EXE /DOUBLE_BUFFER

;DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /WIN95 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5
;DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS
;devicehigh=C:\sb16\drv\csp.sys /unit=0 /blaster=a:220

[network]
dos=HIGH
DEVICEHIGH /L:2,40800 =C:\OAK\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001
DEVICEHIGH /L:2,16976 =C:\WINDOWS\SETVER.EXE
REM ** ;DEVICE=C:\windows\CTCM.EXE
;devicehigh=C:\windows\command\ansi.sys
Stacks=9,256
REM ** ;DEVICE=C:\windows\CTCM.EXE
DEVICEHIGH /L:0;2,8112 /S =C:\DOS\POWER.EXE
DEVICEHIGH /L:1,4560 =C:\WIN3\IFSHLP.SYS
install=C:\share.exe

[NoNetwork]
dos=HIGH,auto
Stacks=64,512
DEVICE=C:\windows\setver.exe
REM ** ;DEVICE=C:\windows\CTCM.EXE
;devicehigh=C:\windows\command\ansi.sys

[minimal]
dos=high,umb,noauto
DEVICE=C:\windows\setver.exe
DEVICE=C:\oak\oakcdrom.sys /D:mscd001

dosstart.bat:

C:\WINDOWS\CTCM
rem C:\WIN3\SMARTDRV.EXE

lh C:\mouse\mouse
lh C:\windows\command\MSCDEX.EXE /S /D:mscd001
rem lh C:\windows\command\smartdrv.exe /v /x 2048
lh C:\sb16\aweutil /em:GM /key-
lh C:\sb16\ct3dse on

startnet.bat:

C:\win3\net initialize
rem C:\NETWORK\nwlink
rem C:\NETWORK\netbind.com
rem C:\NETWORK\umb.com
rem C:\NETWORK\tcptsr.exe
rem C:\NETWORK\tinyrfc.exe
rem C:\NETWORK\nmtsr.exe
rem C:\NETWORK\emsbfr.exe
C:\WIN3\net start

Mem with the network configuration:

Memory Type Total Used Free
---------------- -------- -------- --------
Conventional 640K 118K 522K
Upper 139K 135K 3K
Reserved 384K 384K 0K
Extended (XMS) 31,605K 2,333K 29,272K
---------------- -------- -------- --------
Total memory 32,768K 2,971K 29,797K

Total under 1 MB 779K 253K 525K

Largest executable program size 509K (521,184 bytes)
Largest free upper memory block 2K (1,584 bytes)
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.

I notice I have a lot more loaded than you yet have more conventional memory 😀.

I think EMS emulation is what's using up your UMBs. Try disabling that, you probably don't need it anyway. (add NOEMS to EMM386.EXE line)

How about qemm97 ?

PC Tools version 9, by Central Point

And if looking with an ftp program, there are also all kinds of 'old' programs in the "potpouri" folder - no idea what most is (pkunzip is listed), but oldest is dated 1991.
Maybe something for famous "The Unofficial VOGONS Driver Library" ? 😁

I'll give Qemm97 a try, NOEMS is not an option, a lot of games require it.
However, it does indeed fixes the problems immediately. With everything loaded except for the CDROM drivers I get 590kb of conventional memory. Not bad at all. I get about 560 with the CDROM drivers.

I don't suppose you can use real EMS, so you don't have to use EMM386 and lots of XMS and conventional memory to emulate it?

So wait, what EMM386 does is purely emulate EMS? How do I get real EMS? 😖

Yes, EMM386 basically uses XMS as EMS.

There are EMS cards. They're usually 8-bit ISA (I think). I have no idea if they'll work in newer versions of DOS; I've never had one as I don't (as of this post) often use any software that requires EMS, so I also use NOEMS.