Stack Overflow Problem

Aloha,
Last night I ran Norton's disk doctor and it found some bad dates so it corrected it. I rebooted the computer and it came up to windows ok. This morning I booted up the computer and it came up with this message before windows was completed:

"Terminating thread due to a stack overflow problem. A VXD, possibly recently installed, has consumed too much stack space. Increase the settings of "MinSPs" in system.Ini or remove recently installed VXD's. There are currently 5 SP's allocated".

I rebooted the computer and it booted up to windows ok. How can I check the stack space, check the settings of "MinSPs" in system.Ini and also check if there are still 5 SP's allocated. Also how do I increase the setting of "MinSPs" in system.Ini and how much should I increase it by?? Since windows came up ok after the second reboot, did it automatically fix itself?? TIA

Win98SE
Tyan S1854 Trinity 400 mobo
Intel 800mhz processor

Mahalo,
doogdoog

 

The message indicates that there are currently 5 SPs (Stack Pages) assigned, 2 of which are the default Spare Stacks (if there is NOT already a MinSPs entry).

In order to stop the overflow, we need to increase the number of Spares by 4. The MinSPs= setting determines the number of SPARE stack pages that Windows keeps to loan out to drivers that end up using more than the one they are each allocated.

A stack is a reserved piece of memory. When drivers are fired up, they are given a 4k page of memory to use as a kind of "scratch pad" to do certain operations. This is a stack page. Some drivers end up needing a bit more than one page so Windows, by default, keeps two pages to loan out. The pages kept for loan are known as MinSPs.

Do Start > Run > SYSTEM.INI

Scroll to the [386Enh] section
Look for a MinSPs entry. If you find one, add 4 to the number.

If you don't find one, we will increase the 2 spares by 4, so add the line
MinSPs=6

Save and reboot

Eg:
[386Enh]
MinSPs=6

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];149083

(Judiously plagiarized & paraphrased from posts by SteveYandl of PC911)

 

Aloha Whit Phi.,
Thanks for the reply and I looked at the system.ini and this is what it showed:
[386Enh]
device=*COMBUFF
device=TURBOVCD.VXD
ebios=*ebios
woafont=dosapp.fon
device=*dynapage
device=*vpd
device=*int13
device=*enable
keyboard=*vkd
display=*vdd,*vflatd
mouse=*vmouse,msmouse.vxd
MinPagingFileSize=261652
PagingDrive=C:

Do I just write it in at the end or is there someother place that it should go. TIA

Mahalo,
doogdoog

 

It just has to go after the [386enh] and before the next section (identified by having brackets around it).

So the easiest way is to just make it the second line, as in my post above.

 

Aloha WhitPhil,
Thanks for the reply and will do. TIA

Mahalo,
doogdoog