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- Maximizing Memory with PCMCIA
-
- Quarterdeck Technical Note #298 Filename: PCMCIA.TEC
- by Michael Bolton & Giri Singh CompuServe: PCMCIA.TEC
- Last revised: 4/4/95 Category: QEMM
-
- Subject: Maximizing memory with PCMCIA hardware and software.
-
- Q. On my notebook machine, the PCMCIA hardware and software seems
- to take up a lot of space in High RAM. What can I do to reduce
- this?
-
- A. PCMCIA hardware and software, by default, may be configured to
- use more address space than they require. You can often adjust
- downward the amount of address space reserved for your PCMCIA
- devices if you are NOT using an ATA hard drive or a memory card.
- The example techniques below have been applied successfully with
- CardSoft PCMCIA Card Services Support software from SystemSoft.
- Notes follow for Phoenix PCMCIA Card Services Support, AMI
- PCMCIA Card Services Support, and IBM's PCMCIA Card Services.
- If your system uses some other vintage of PCMCIA Card Services
- support software, then consult the manual that came with your
- system for similar techniques.
-
-
- 1) In your current CONFIG.SYS file, remove any EXCLUDE parameters
- that refer to the D000 page on the QEMM386.SYS line. Then add
- the parameter X=D000:16K to the end of the QEMM386.SYS line.
- (Even a 16K EXCLUDE is probably excessive. Most PCMCIA network
- and modem cards require only a 4K EXCLUDE, and even this is
- only needed for the PCMCIA diagnostic software to work
- properly. Some experimentation may be called for, depending the
- PCMCIA devices in use on your system.)
-
- 2) Copy your CONFIG.SYS to another file name so that you can
- restore it easily later. Create a new CONFIG.SYS file with
- only QEMM386.SYS and FILES=40 in it. Place only the parameters
- RAM X=D000:16K on the QEMM386.SYS line in CONFIG.SYS. Don't
- put any other EXCLUDEs on the QEMM386.SYS line unless you know
- that they are required for some other aspect of your system.
- The idea is to get QEMM to create High RAM, but to leave a
- small range of address space unmapped. This range may have to
- be increased if it is insufficient to avoid conflicts;
- conversely, as noted above, the 16K may be reduced to as
- little as 4K if you are using a device that requires little
- or no upper memory space (for example, most PCMCIA modems).
- Copy AUTOEXEC.BAT to another file name. Create a new
- AUTOEXEC.BAT that preserves only your PROMPT and PATH lines.
-
- 3) Copy the PCMCIA software configuration file -- CSALLOC.INI, in
- our example -- to another name; call it CSALLOC.QDK.
-
- 4) Reboot with the minimal CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files you
- created in Step 1.
-
- 5) Change to PCMCIA driver directory (in our case, CARDSOFT), and
- run the PCMCIA configuration utility (in our case, CSALLOC)
- from the command line. (Some versions of CSALLOC also require
- a /G switch.)
-
- 6) Verify that the CSALLOC.INI file (which will be an ASCII text
- file) is created with a line that says MEM=D000-D3FF.
-
- 7) Restore the original CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, and test your
- PCMCIA devices. In your CONFIG.SYS file, make sure that on
- your QEMM386.SYS line, you have an EXCLUDE that matches the
- range that you EXCLUDEd above (e.g. X=D000:16K or X=D000:4K).
-
- PHOENIX TECHNOLOGIES
-
- If your system uses Phoenix Technologies PCMCIA Card Services
- Support software version 3.x, you may follow the steps above. The
- only differences are:
-
- - the configuration file is named PCM.INI (instead of
- CSALLOC.INI);
-
- - the setup program is named PCMSETUP.EXE (instead of
- CSALLOC.EXE); and
-
- - the default directory name is PCM3.
-
- AMI
-
- If your System has AMI PCMCIA Card Services Support software
- installed, you may follow the steps above. The only differences
- are:
-
- - the configuration file is named AMICS.CFG (instead of
- CSALLOC.INI);
-
- - the setup program is named AMISRU.EXE (instead of CSALLOC.EXE);
- and
-
- - the default directory name is PCMCIA.
-
- IBM
-
- IBM PCMCIA Card Services Support software normally comes with the
- Thinkpad series of systems. The IBM PCMCIA drivers need the
- memory address to be specified via the Resource Map Utility,
- DICRMU01.SYS. This utility loads as a device line in CONFIG.SYS,
- and is described in the documentation that comes with your
- computer.
-
- Specify an appropriate address range via the /MA parameter to
- DICRMU01.SYS. For example, to set up a 16K address range at D000,
- and assuming that DICRUM0.SYS is in the PCMCIA directory, the
- DICRMU01.SYS line would look like this:
-
- DEVICE=C:\PCMCIA\DICRMU01.SYS /MA=D000-D3FF
-
- If DICRUM01.SYS is in another directory, change the path
- accordingly.
-
- Q. I installed QEMM on my system, and ran OPTIMIZE, and it seemed
- to identify almost all of my upper memory addresses as High RAM.
- Is this correct?
-
- A. Probably not. QEMM and OPTIMIZE provide support for drivers
- that adhere to v2.1 of the PCMCIA specification. While the 2.1
- spec is almost two years old as of this writing, many vendors
- provide drivers that support only PCMCIA v2.0. OPTIMIZE may, on
- such systems, identify many more areas of adapter RAM than are
- actually present. To work around this, pass OPTIMIZE the
- /PCMCIA=xxxx-yyyy parameter, where xxxx is the starting address
- and yyyy the ending address of the range used by your PCMCIA
- drivers. The starting and ending addresses can be determined
- from your configuration files -- in our examples above,
- CSALLOC.INI, PCM.INI, or AMICS.CFG -- or from the /MA parameter
- on the DICRUM01.SYS line if you're using IBM's PCMCIA
- implementation.
-
- For example, if your PCMCIA setup is using 16K at address D000,
- you should use the OPTIMIZE parameter
-
- /PCMCIA=D000-D3FF
-
- to ensure that OPTIMIZE is aware of the PCMCIA implementation on
- the machine. Again, you may be able to reduce the size of this
- range.
-
- ******************************************************************
- * Trademarks are property of their respective owners. *
- * This and other technical notes may be available in updated *
- * forms through Quarterdeck's standard support channels. *
- * Copyright (C) 1995 Quarterdeck Corporation *
- ******************** E N D O F F I L E ***********************
-