VOGONS


First post, by kikenovic

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No biggie I guess, but still.

I recently put together a 3.11 rig. After a couple days the Boot logo stopped showing up after i type "win". If I use "Throttle" the logo shows up but windows is unusable even at the #1 setting.

The specs are PII 233 @ 133 mhz, 64 MB ram, WS440BX mobo, 4GB WD AC14300.

Any ideas on why the 3.11 logo wouldn't show up and how to make it appear?

Thanks.

Reply 2 of 17, by RJDog

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Yeah, I have a Pentium MMX 233 and Windows 3.1 logo just flashes up and gone very quickly... blink and you'd miss it. Ampera is probably correct that it's so fast it doesn't look like it shows at all.

Reply 3 of 17, by kixs

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This is related to video mode change and your monitor. Your system is too fast and your monitor too slow with the video mode change. This is why you miss the logo.

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs

Reply 5 of 17, by Ampera

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kikenovic wrote:

Thanks for the quick answers guys.

That was the slowest system I could come up with for this project.

Win 3.x and below is really more for 486 and lower. P5 Pentium (pre MMX) tops.

Reply 6 of 17, by Jo22

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Ampera wrote:

Win 3.x and below is really more for 486 and lower. P5 Pentium (pre MMX) tops.

Right. Albeit it can cope with faster systems better than Win95 (that needs the K6 patches at some point).. 😉

I used to run Windows 3.1 on a 286-12 for many years, but it also worked like a charm on a Pentium 75 and a Pentium 166MMX.
This must have been somwhen around 2000, when I had Win98 as my primary OS.

I kept Win 3.1 as a secondary system for (-among other things-) little programs and Visual Basic v1.
A few of my Win 2.x games and tools also required it.

Back then I hadn't really figured out that Windows 2 can also run on newer DOSes if they report something
like v3.x back to win.com (I ran my dad's copy of Windows 2 via floppies and good old PC-DOS 3).😅

That's why Windows 3.1 was still somehow useful, eventhough Win98 could run most of the Windows 3.1 stuff.

kikenovic wrote:

I recently put together a 3.11 rig. After a couple days the Boot logo stopped showing up after i type "win". If I use "Throttle" the logo shows up but windows is unusable even at the #1 setting.

The specs are PII 233 @ 133 mhz, 64 MB ram, WS440BX mobo, 4GB WD AC14300.

Besides the faster-than-necessary-CPU, everything else fits nicely for a WfW 3.11 machine : 😀
(I admit, that CPU could quite be useful for Mod-Players w/ large modules or Video CD / CD-i playback)

-Memory up to 64MB can be fully used by Himem.sys from DOS 6.2 (prior ones had a 16MB limit, I believe)
-Your 4GB HDD is within the 8GB drive limit of DOS 6.x and the MicroHouse FastDisk driver

If you're also getting a graphics card with DCI drivers or a QuickTime compatible chipset, you're set. 😁

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"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 7 of 17, by tayyare

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Jo22 wrote:

-Your 4GB HDD is within the 8GB drive limit of DOS 6.x and the MicroHouse FastDisk driver

I wonder if:
- This driver only needed for 32 bit disk access under Windows 3.1/3.11?
- Or, is it required whenever you have a larger than 528MB HDD (correctly supported by MB BIOS) even you don't use 32bit disk access?
- Is it only for specific brand of HDDs?

Thanks in advance 😊

GA-6VTXE PIII 1.4+512MB
Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB
Diamond Monster 3D 12MB SLI
SB AWE64 PNP+32MB
120GB IDE Samsung/80GB IDE Seagate/146GB SCSI Compaq/73GB SCSI IBM
Adaptec AHA29160
3com 3C905B-TX
Gotek+CF Reader
MSDOS 6.22+Win 3.11/95 OSR2.1/98SE/ME/2000

Reply 8 of 17, by Jo22

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tayyare wrote:
I wonder if: - This driver only needed for 32 bit disk access under Windows 3.1/3.11? - Or, is it required whenever you have a […]
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Jo22 wrote:

-Your 4GB HDD is within the 8GB drive limit of DOS 6.x and the MicroHouse FastDisk driver

I wonder if:
- This driver only needed for 32 bit disk access under Windows 3.1/3.11?
- Or, is it required whenever you have a larger than 528MB HDD (correctly supported by MB BIOS) even you don't use 32bit disk access?
- Is it only for specific brand of HDDs?

Thanks in advance 😊

Hi, it's only for 32bit disk access, no worries. 😀
Windows can also run just fine without it, albeit less smooth/speedy on some machines.

The original FastDisk driver was limited to ~500MB,
since it predated the IDE standard (was meant for WD1003 controllers).

The MicroHouse driver can be used with most HDDs and some flash media (any brand),
if they are fully backwards-compatible with the earlier ATA standards (~ ATA-2, I believe).

Anyway, it's just nice to have, so Windows 3.1x does not need to call DOS or BIOS to access the drive (like a real OS).
In some circumstances -like when using FAT32 partitions or Ultra DMA- access through DOS is a better choice.

The Micro House driver and other "dongled" (brand-specific) FastDisk drivers can be found here :

http://www.win31.de/edrivers.htm
http://www.mdgx.com/w31toy.htm

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 9 of 17, by RJDog

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Jo22 wrote:

Thanks for the link! I was able to find a download here to solve my Win3.1 install Y2K problem 🤣

Reply 10 of 17, by tayyare

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Jo22 wrote:
Hi, it's only for 32bit disk access, no worries. :) Windows can also run just fine without it, albeit less smooth/speedy on some […]
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Hi, it's only for 32bit disk access, no worries. 😀
Windows can also run just fine without it, albeit less smooth/speedy on some machines.

The original FastDisk driver was limited to ~500MB,
since it predated the IDE standard (was meant for WD1003 controllers).

The MicroHouse driver can be used with most HDDs and some flash media (any brand),
if they are fully backwards-compatible with the earlier ATA standards (~ ATA-2, I believe).

Anyway, it's just nice to have, so Windows 3.1x does not need to call DOS or BIOS to access the drive (like a real OS).
In some circumstances -like when using FAT32 partitions or Ultra DMA- access through DOS is a better choice.

The Micro House driver and other "dongled" (brand-specific) FastDisk drivers can be found here :

http://www.win31.de/edrivers.htm
http://www.mdgx.com/w31toy.htm

Thanks a lot for this valuable explanation. I was using Windows 3.11 from time to time all in 2GB partitions, so it's good to know I'm not looking for a potential data corruption or something. 😊

GA-6VTXE PIII 1.4+512MB
Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB
Diamond Monster 3D 12MB SLI
SB AWE64 PNP+32MB
120GB IDE Samsung/80GB IDE Seagate/146GB SCSI Compaq/73GB SCSI IBM
Adaptec AHA29160
3com 3C905B-TX
Gotek+CF Reader
MSDOS 6.22+Win 3.11/95 OSR2.1/98SE/ME/2000

Reply 11 of 17, by kikenovic

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Thanks Jo, I feel better now about this "time machine".

You read my mind, last night I placed an order for a Cirrus based card.

Speaking of 8 gig drives, I recently refurbished an OG Xbox 8GB drive and divided it in 4 (never done it before). It'll make a nice spare.

Reply 12 of 17, by Jo22

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RJDog wrote:

Thanks for the link! I was able to find a download here to solve my Win3.1 install Y2K problem 🤣

You're welcome! 😀

Microsoft did also release a "Year 2000" CD back then.
It was shipped with several computer magazines and contained the new File Managers for Windows 3.1x..

Wait, here's a picture of it:

242px-Microsoft_Year_2000_Resource_CD_X04-80653.jpg

tayyare wrote:

Thanks a lot for this valuable explanation. I was using Windows 3.11 from time to time all in 2GB partitions, so it's good to know I'm not looking for a potential data corruption or something. 😊

No problem, glad I could help with that. 😁
Also, data corruption shouldn't happen with the FastDisk drivers.

The one that ships with Windows is very paranoid and only operates if it is absolutely sure everything is fine.
That's why the "enable 32 disk access" box in 386 enhanced settings was often not visible.

Notebooks were also a reason, because they often used strange power saving features.
I've already seen one that supported some kind of "hibernation mode" in hardware (swap memory to disk).

I think it was called sometimes "overlay mode" or similar, because they had LEDs named "OVL" or "overlay".
The only source I was able to find about this is an article from 1992.

These are a few other "pros" of FastDisk that comes to mind :
- It enhances support for multiple DOS sessions in Windows (sessions in backround can be kept in virtual memory)
- Supports multi-sector reads/writes (MicroHouse version)
- Windows can stay in protected-mode, no/less BIOS calls via V86
- Stability is enhanced (prevents deadlock situations, see above)

There's a great article about the insides of the original FastDisk driver at OS/2 Museum called "How to please WDCTRL".
It's is *very* technical, but also explains well why the original driver nolonger works on modern drives (that's where the MicroHouse version comes into play).

kikenovic wrote:

Thanks Jo, I feel better now about this "time machine".

You read my mind, last night I placed an order for a Cirrus based card.

Speaking of 8 gig drives, I recently refurbished an OG Xbox 8GB drive and divided it in 4 (never done it before). It'll make a nice spare.

Cool, I heard of Cirrus cards beeing quite nice! 😀
We had some talk about them here at Vogons about a month ago or so.

That beeing said, I'm not familiar with them yet, though. (Shame on me!) 😅
All I know is that they are quite fast, similar to the S3 Trios (perhaps even better).

And that they were quite popular in the later japanese PC98 models (what's PC98 ?).
- To improve Windows (3.1) performance! 😀

You can find several benchmark utilities in the Vogons thread "Best PCI VGA card for Windows 3.11 performance?"
This thread was started several months before we discussed the Cirrus cards.

-

Also check out The GUI Gallery page and Phil's Benchmark archive.
Two other random pages I've found are The386 page and Conrad's home.

Another page I used to visit was Caiman.us. It was such a lovely site .. 🙁
It had a huge number of Win9x/XP games, as well as some Windows 3.1 games.

-

Btw, I'm also often using the WQHLT driver for my virtual machines and on my dedicated MOD player box.
It helps to keep the fans quiet and issues a "CPUHLT" instruction directly to the processor each time when Windows is idle.

It's worth a try if the "APM" setting (BIOS-driven) in Windows setup doesn't do so well and the rig is running over a longer time..
The driver was mentioned in the "CPU load reduction for Windows 3.1" thread here at vogons.

The WQGHLT tool is also part of the 31pack :
http://www.scampers.org/steve/vmware/

But again, it's just an purely optional thing. If your rig is mainly used for gaming
and works otherwise well, then there's no need for it. 😀

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 13 of 17, by kikenovic

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It was the video driver. As soon as I went back to VGA the logo showed up again. Guess things get more efficient with the correct drivers 😀

Went back to the TNT drivers, smoother performance and software compatibility are preferred vs a silly boot logo.

Reply 14 of 17, by blacksn

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I have he same problem with logo and ATI Rage drivers.

Also I need SHARE.EXE to run Office with DOS 7.1 and DOS drivers for Promise Ultra100TX2 to enable CD-ROM.

AMD Am5x86-133ADW/Shuttle HOT-433 256Kb/4x16 SIMM EDO/ATI Rage XL 8Mb/Ultra100 TX2/WD 400BB-60DGA 40 Gb/Opti 82c861 USB/ESS1868/RTL8139/CD-ROM NEC CD-3002a

Reply 15 of 17, by Malik

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All these missing screens are due to the delay of the monitor or LCD to display the current image, while changing resolution, and meanwhile the system proceeds with the loading in faster systems.

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 16 of 17, by KCompRoom2000

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Ampera wrote:

Win 3.x and below is really more for 486 and lower. P5 Pentium (pre MMX) tops.

Looks like I'm gonna have to hunt down a 200 MHz Socket 7 Pentium w/o MMX then. I really don't wanna have to downgrade my system to a 486 'cuz 486 boards and CPUs are expensive now, and the only 486 I have is a shitty MediaGX Compaq without proper Win3.1x driver support. 😢

Reply 17 of 17, by blacksn

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Malik wrote:

All these missing screens are due to the delay of the monitor or LCD to display the current image, while changing resolution, and meanwhile the system proceeds with the loading in faster systems.

Yes, I have disabled L1 cache of 5x86-133 and logo appeared. Thanks!

AMD Am5x86-133ADW/Shuttle HOT-433 256Kb/4x16 SIMM EDO/ATI Rage XL 8Mb/Ultra100 TX2/WD 400BB-60DGA 40 Gb/Opti 82c861 USB/ESS1868/RTL8139/CD-ROM NEC CD-3002a