Shared RAM and Expanded Memory Managers with LAN Manager

ID: Q97171

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft LAN Manager
on the following platforms: MS-DOS

SUMMARY

An issue that confuses some people when installing LAN Manager on an MS-DOS workstation is the presence of shared RAM. On certain 16-bit ethernet cards, you can configure your card to use either shared RAM or DMA. This raises concerns if you are also using EMM386 or any other expanded memory manager. When using shared RAM, you must exclude an area or areas of upper memory. In EMM386, this requires an entry where


   x=beginning memory address-ending

This address will vary according to the card and to your configuration. To avoid these complications you can simply disable shared RAM. This is done with either a setup disk for the network card or a jumper or DIP switch setting on the card itself.

Some token ring cards (notably IBM types) have an added problem because you are required to exclude both the ROM and RAM addresses of the card. These addresses are DIP switch configurable (see the card's documentation for the settings). Simply put two exclude statements on the EMM386.EXE command line to exclude both these areas of memory as follows:


   device=emm386.exe x=BEGIN-END x=BEGIN-END

where

Begin = the beginning address
End = the ending address

Example


   device=emm386.exe x=c000-c800 x=d000-d800

(This is only an example and should not be used to cure exclusions. Check your documentation for the actual memory addresses.)

The symptoms of absent exclusions can vary from an inability to bind the protocol to the card to a more unusual problem with token ring cards; token ring cards (with EMM386 loaded) without memory exclusions may fail on cold boot but successfully bind and function on warm boots.

Remember if you are not running a memory manager like EMM386 then these are non-issues, but most people use these managers for lower memory conservation.

Additional query words: 1.30

Keywords :
Version : :
Platform :
Issue type :