Stack Overflow Problem

[doogdoog]

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

 

[WhitPhil]

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)

 

[doogdoog]

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

 

[WhitPhil]

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.

 

[doogdoog]

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

Mahalo,
doogdoog