Have you tried himemx instead, I know it sounds dumb but maybe that one would work around this issue automagically as you say

feipoa wrote:

s. After setting up QEMM, which was rather confusing, I did not experience any issue loading IE5, however, I did run into sever […]
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s. After setting up QEMM, which was rather confusing, I did not experience any issue loading IE5, however, I did run into several other issues.

For example, at Windows shutdown, I would get

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1Windows Protection Error #0=
2You may need to restart your computer.
3C:\>

I couldn't run anything at the DOS prompt. I had to reboot.

Hi, it's difficult to do diagnostics from the far, so I don't want to lead you in a wrong direction, but..
A while ago, when I browsed win31.de, I read that Windows 3.x requires some some free space below 1MiB to properly work.
Also, as I read further, some programs seemed to mess up this space with their own code, which may or may not caused instability.
There are two utilites which can fix this issue, one was called "1MB fix", if memory serves.

Edit: It was "Fix1MB" -> http://stephan.win31.de/dwnlod_d.htm
Alternativevly, there also was syshook.drv.
It's mentioned on Stephan's old Windows 3.1 Tuning page -> http://stephan.win31.de/w31mm_en.htm#Ressourcen

Well, I am using the APSIBUF.SYS with a Feb 1998 date on it. I tried the older ones as well. According to Adaptec, this is the file to use with the 1540 card if you have above 16 MB of RAM. Perhaps there are some flags for ASPIBUF which need to be set?

When you ask if I have disabled the cache, are you refering to the L1 or L2 cache? I recall setting the all the RAM to uncachable and trying IE5. I remember thinking "OK, that wasn't the problem". I'll double check this though.

I'll check out HimemX, Fix1MB, and syshook.drv. Perhaps 386Max as well. But... I was planning on doing taxes this weekend as there is only 11 days left. So I'll probably be delayed in looking into these ideas.

HIMEMX is pretty close to a drop in replacement for HIMEM.SYS so it should be fairly painless to use.

gdjacobs wrote:

HIMEMX is pretty close to a drop in replacement for HIMEM.SYS so it should be fairly painless to use.

When I loaded HIMEMX, DOS would boot, but Windows 3.11 would not. I tried several of the A20 line handler methods, sych as ALWAYSON, BIOS, FAST, and KBC; but not PS2 or PORT92.

It works with Win98. I should try it on my MS-DOS 6.22 drive.

HIMEMX and JEMMEX seem to have a difficult time determining how to control A20 on this particular motherboard.

It feels like using fix1mb increased the chance of success for IE5 to actually open without hanging. I was going to say it saved the day, but then I rebooted a 5th time and IE5 hung up. What is curious is that some of the times that IE5 opens and closes properly, there's a 25% chance that some files get corrupted on the HDD. Those files are always from the C:\WINDOWS directory and are usually IFSHLP.SYS, WFWSYS.CFG, SYSTEM.INI, or SHARES.PWL

Following reboot, scandisk finds odd errors (attached). Usually 5 such errors all with garbled characters.

I wonder if you installed Dos 7 with the unofficial Windows 3.1 patch to allow operation under dos 7?

Just flailing arms at this point, maybe there is a Mr Bios for your board as well (likely no memory hole option either though)

*******WARNING!!*******
YOUR WINDOWS HAS BEEN POSSESSED
BY A FILE CORRUPTING EVIL SPIRIT!
Press OK to download McAfee anti virus
software to clean your computer
of ghosts

MR BIOS for VLSI Topcat is likely lost to oblivion. It will be a miracle if one shows up.

Does anyone know what fix1mb does? It, to a large degree, made it so that I can open IE5 9 out of 10 times rather than 1 in 10 times. Perhaps the SCSI controller card is loading something into conventional memory that shouldn't be there?

syshook.drv did not help in this regard.

Jo22 wrote on 2019-04-19, 19:41:

Hi, it's difficult to do diagnostics from the far, so I don't want to lead you in a wrong direction, but.. A while ago, when I b […]
Show full quote

feipoa wrote:

s. After setting up QEMM, which was rather confusing, I did not experience any issue loading IE5, however, I did run into sever […]
Show full quote

s. After setting up QEMM, which was rather confusing, I did not experience any issue loading IE5, however, I did run into several other issues.

For example, at Windows shutdown, I would get

Copy code to clipboard

1Windows Protection Error #0=
2You may need to restart your computer.
3C:\>

I couldn't run anything at the DOS prompt. I had to reboot.

Hi, it's difficult to do diagnostics from the far, so I don't want to lead you in a wrong direction, but..
A while ago, when I browsed win31.de, I read that Windows 3.x requires some some free space below 1MiB to properly work.
Also, as I read further, some programs seemed to mess up this space with their own code, which may or may not caused instability.
There are two utilites which can fix this issue, one was called "1MB fix", if memory serves.

Edit: It was "Fix1MB" -> http://stephan.win31.de/dwnlod_d.htm
Alternativevly, there also was syshook.drv.
It's mentioned on Stephan's old Windows 3.1 Tuning page -> http://stephan.win31.de/w31mm_en.htm#Ressourcen

regarding syshook.drv, it is worth to mention that it doesn't play well with win32s 1.30c.
if your win32 application uses OLE (i.e. depends on OLE32.DLL), it won't run (and say you have outdated system component) if you use syshook.drv instead of default system.drv.

My 486 can still go online with I.E. 5.0 and Win-3.11.

See my post:
Re: 486 Multimedia dream build ( 1993/94 ).