Kernel_Stack_Inpage_Error with DPT PM2012B/9X

• Microsoft Windows NT operating system version 3.1
• Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1

SYMPTOMS

When you add a 4-megabyte (MB) cache to a DPT PM2012B/9X adapter card, a KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR may occur. This error does not occur when the card is running at its default of 512 kilobytes (K).

The STOP message is 0x77 (0x00000103,0xC0000185, 0x0,0x099b0000) which indicates either a bad block in paging file or disk controller error.

RESOLUTION

To avoid this error, use the EISA Config utility to set the cache to WRITE- THROUGH instead of WRITE-BACK.

NOTE: Make sure the DPT firmware is upgraded to version 3G and the SmartROM to version 1K.

Windows NT supports caching disk controllers under the following conditions:

a. Controller has a driver that specifically supports caching (for example,

   DPT).

   by setting it manually or by default when the computer starts.

   default when the computer starts.

MORE INFORMATION

When a processor needs to write to memory, the hardware must determine whether the memory location is in the cache of some other processor. If so, the other caches must be invalidated or given the new data.

At this point the cache controller writing the data may update main memory so that other caches will get the updated data from memory if they need the word in the future; this is called write-through caching. Alternatively, the cache controller can wait to update main memory until it needs to reuse the cache location. This is called write-back.

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