Every dos program restarts my comp, and it never used to do that (WinXP Home) \ VOGONS

Every dos program restarts my comp, and it never used to do that (WinXP Home)

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First post, by 3up

Posted on 2009-09-21, 19:46

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I haven't touched dos stuff for about a year, then I tried some programs today. Command prompt works, but any dos program I try to run will instantly crash and restart the computer.

I checked my System32 folder, and everything important that I can think of seems intact (ntvdm.exe and ntvdmd.dll are present, autoexec.nt and config.nt have their proper contents, himem.sys is there)

Dosbox works. Yeah yeah, I can just use that, but I find that certain games perform better under ntvdm.

Anything I should be looking for?

Reply 1 of 9, by DosFreak

Posted on 2009-09-21, 20:29

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Are they DOS programs that run in a window or that run fullscreen?

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Reply 2 of 9, by 3up

Posted on 2009-09-21, 23:40

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Funny you should ask that, as I hadn't actually tried windowed mode. After testing, windowed will work, full screen doesn't.

Reply 3 of 9, by DosFreak

Posted on 2009-09-21, 23:53

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Are you using any kind of hardware monitoring programs? A long time ago in a galaxy far far away Motherboard Monitor used a driver called GIVEIO.SYS which would cause DOS games to freeze/BSOD windows. It was eventually fixed, but this is one of the many reasons why just using DOSBox is the best choice.

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Reply 4 of 9, by 3up

Posted on 2009-09-22, 00:17

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None that I can think of...

I saw the topic about the giveio.sys thing, but I haven't found it, nor directio.sys or osaio.sys.

Reply 5 of 9, by MiniMax

Posted on 2009-09-22, 15:55

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Tried booting into Safe Mode and then run the games in fullscreen?

Reply 6 of 9, by Jorpho

Posted on 2009-09-22, 16:32

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Do you have XP configured to automatically reboot on a BSOD? Should be in the System control panel somewhere, though I can't quite recall.

Reply 7 of 9, by HunterZ

Posted on 2009-09-22, 17:24

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Jorpho wrote:
Do you have XP configured to automatically reboot on a BSOD? Should be in the System control panel somewhere, though I can't quite recall.

System Properties (Win+Pause) -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery -> Settings -> System failure -> Automatically restart <-- UNCHECK THIS BOX.

Reply 8 of 9, by 3up

Posted on 2009-09-22, 19:27

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1. I followed the instructions. I read the blue screen, and it listed ati2dvag.dll as the problem. That's my 2D video card driver, if I recall correctly. It's an ATI HD 2400 pro.

2. Running in safe mode let dos programs run full screen just fine.

3. Turning my hardware acceleration off in normal mode also allows them to run just fine.

Ya know, I just remembered: my ATI HD 2400 wouldn't work with Gametap (before they killed the client service and changed it for a crappy and slow browser service). I was told by the tech support at gametap that my card's 2D drivers didn't cut the mustard, and I'd have to wait for ATI to fix it.

I wish I could remember when I got this one. I used to have an ATI x550, which worked with everything. I can't remember if my 2400 ever worked with fullscreen dos stuff.

I tried running that vgatest.exe, but it... well, crashes the comp if my video accell is turned on, heh

Reply 9 of 9, by HunterZ

Posted on 2009-09-22, 19:33

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You might try upgrading or downgrading your video cards, and/or looking for a BIOS update.

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