PC crashes with emm386

Gavinb

When I have emm386.exe in my config.sys my PC crashes/won't boot.
I need this loaded for my sound card to work properly.

Can anyone help ?

Typedef

Do you get any kind of error message?
What propmpted the system to begin to crash?

astrofool

emm386 is a memory manager for DOS, u do not lead it loaded for sound cards, alot of older dos games used it, and alot of those dos games will now not work in a windows environment, if u want to play them, a dos boot disk might be the option.

What make of sound card is it? and what OS?

Saruman

astrofool is correct you do not need to load it, in fact if you are running windows 95/98 you do not even need autoexec.bat and config.sys at all, usually best to delete or rename them or in the case of 98 run msconfig and take the tick out of them (once selctive startup is selected). and unless you need for Dos games (in this day and age??) you definatly dont need it at all for your sound card to work.

Typedef

http://techsupport.ea.com/troubleshooting/dos/drivers.html
The Sound Card Driver

Sound card drivers can be the most complicated drivers to find since there are so many makes and models of sound cards. Each sound card driver loads differently and had different requirements. Keep in mind that most PCI based sound cards require that EMM386.EXE is loaded to work correctly. EMM386.EXE may conflict with some games that use their own memory manager. If this is the case, the game will not run with sound.

Joysticks and other controllers that use the sound card's game port will require that the sound card driver is loaded in DOS before they will work. Some joysticks will not work in DOS. Check the joystick's documentation for DOS compatibility.

Any device that uses a USB connection will not work in DOS. This includes joysticks, mice and keyboards.

Sounds wierd doesn't it? Still if you are running windows 98 then it has other ways of addressing 'extended' memory as far as I remember??

What is the exact error message if any you are getting?
As far as I can tell though this is only pertinant to dos is it not? Therefore are you running dos or booting a 9x machine in dos mode to play a game on a system that has a pci sound card?

astrofool

Return to the DOS Troubleshooting Guide Index

is the next line of that troubleshoot


emm386 is only used in a pure dos mode, like win95 had (reboot to dos)

when pci sound cards first came out it was recommended that you keep an old ISA card for use in dos games.

solutions:

don't use older dos games

make a dos boot disk

don't use emm386 in windows

Gavinb

My soundcard is a Creative Labs Live 5.1
During installation of its software emm386.exe is put in my config.sys.
If it is not there the following will not work/gives an error:
SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS
C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM

When emm386.exe is loaded I either get a reboot or a message something like:
"Windows protection error, this program cannot be loaded"

Typedef

How about if you F8 on boot and select
command prompt only.

sacred cow

When you install your SB Live drivers, the default install puts all sorts of things on your PC.Best thing is to choose the Custom option when installing the SB Live's drivers and software.
DOS support is one of them and Windows, as someone above said, doesn't need it to function.

The reason you're getting the error message is because:

C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM

The actual driver is still trying to run.

So, if you stop it trying to load, all will be well.

Copy the config.sys file somewhere safe (best to keep a backup in case you need to use the SB in Dos) and then delete or REM the lines from the config.sys, save the file and reboot.

Delete or put "REM" infront of the lines:

REM SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6
REM SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS
REM C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM

If you can get your hands on Msconfig.exe, it works in Win95, although it doesn't come with that version of Windows.Just put it in your Windows folder and type "msconfig" (no quotes) in Start>Run... It's a handy utility to have.

And if you need Dos support, as was said, a Startup floppy with a modified config.sys and autoexec.bat is the way to go.

This article explains it.

Hope this helps.

astrofool

cos if u want to load things like emm386 in dos but not in windows, you're going to need different config.sys and autoexec for each one. duh