ID Number: Q41024
5.00 5.10 6.00 6.00a 6.00ax 7.00
MS-DOS
Summary:
SYMPTOMS
For MS-DOS version 3.2 or later, the following message is issued by
MS-DOS when too many interrupts occur too quickly and the pool of
internal stack frames is exhausted:
FATAL: Internal Stack Failure, System Halted
RESOLUTION
Increasing the number of stacks allocated for use by interrupt
handlers in the STACKS command in CONFIG.SYS usually corrects the
problem.
More Information:
The syntax is as follows:
STACKS=n,s
n = number of stacks, ranging from 8 to 64, with 9 as the default
s = size of each stack, ranging from 32 to 512 bytes, default of
128.
For more information about the STACKS command, see page 805 of the
"MS-DOS Encyclopedia."
This error can occur if network cards, laboratory measurement
instruments, and other devices are in use. They may generate many
hardware interrupts, thus exhausting the MS-DOS stack resources.
Note: For MS-DOS version 3.3 on an IBM-PC, IBM-XT, or IBM-PC-Portable,
the default for n is 0 (zero) and s is 0.
Additional reference words: 5.10 6.00 6.00a 6.00ax 7.00