How to reverse a failed driver installation

[clh333]

I need to reverse a failed video driver installation which has resulted in a general protection fault (trap: 000d, errc: 0000, exception SINGLEQ$) that prevents the machine from booting.  I am completely inexperienced ("noob") with OS/2 but I installed V3 on a '586 VLB machine and had a running system until I tried to install a video driver for the Genoa Windows VGA 24 VLB video card.  I found the driver on the Hobie(?) site and got halfway through the install before it failed.  The install mentioned saving the original files but didn't say what they were named or where they were saved.

I have a boxed set of OS/2 2.1 with disks and a manual.  With the help of these materials I am able to at least get the machine to a command prompt and access the C: drive, but from there I am unsure how to proceed, not knowing enough about the file structure or command syntax to search for most recently modified files.

Suggestions welcome, thanks.
-CH-

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Hey Charles,

Probably the quickest way to get back to a working system is by forcing the VGA mode at boot-up.

Here is what you need to do:

1) Re-boot the machine
2) when the white rectangle pops-up in the top LEFT corner of the screen (during early boot stage) you hit ALT+F1
3) you now should be looking at a menu that has several choices, select option 'V' I think (if I remember correctly), this will force the box to book in VGA mode

Try it and let us know what happens.

[clh333]

As you described:  When the white rectangle appeared in the upper left corner of the screen, pressing ALT-F1 brought up a menu of options; one of which, "V" forced the machine to reinstall VGA.  The machine has done so successfully and I now have a desktop on the display.

Thank you indeed for your assistance.

The Genoa card uses the Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426 chipset, according to the information I found, but apparently there is another software tool to identify the monitor that is on a utility disk.  As the monitor I have attached to the machine is a Viewsonic LCD I don't think I would have found it anyway.  I do have other CRTs, however.

Eventually I would like to upgrade to Warp 4.52 but I think I'll get a little more familiar with the OS first.  Thanks again for your help.

-CH-

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Here is something else you could try: head on back to Hobbes and d/l the SNAP video drivers. Here is the direct link to the ZIP file => https://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/system/drivers/video/snap-os2-3.1.8.zip

Given that your video chipset is an older one I'm not sure if that last public version of SNAP supports it, but the README will most likely point it out.

The benefit with these drivers is that they simply have additional capabilities to help you deal with different monitor formats, resolutions, etc.

Worst case if SNAP does not work, is that you repeat the same VGA Recovery process that you had just gone through.

[Lars]

I am not sure if OS/2 2.1 supports GRADD video drivers.
I remember that OS/2 2.0 initially only supported 16-bit video drivers ! Boy, that is such a long time ago..

[Andreas Schnellbacher]

| SciTech SNAP Graphics for OS/2 requires a version of OS/2 Warp 3 or
| later in order to run. More importantly, it requires at least Warp 3
| with FixPak 35, or Warp 4 with FixPak 5 installed.

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi Charles. Welcome to the forum.

Can you give us a little description of the machine where OS/2 is running?
- Which version of OS/2 are you running 2.0 or Warp 3 (You can execute a "ver /r" on the command line).
- What software is the one that is critical on that OS/2 system?
- Does the computer has some special hardware that needs to be supported?

Maybe with that we can give you a better idea which driver to use and if it is possible to easily go the Warp 4.52 or even ArcaOS if you want to acquire it.

Regards

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

| SciTech SNAP Graphics for OS/2 requires a version of OS/2 Warp 3 or
| later in order to run. More importantly, it requires at least Warp 3
| with FixPak 35, or Warp 4 with FixPak 5 installed.

Right...and per Charles' original post (although the BOLD is my add), where he stated:

...I am completely inexperienced ("noob") with OS/2 but I installed V3 on a '586 VLB machine and had a running system until I tried to install a video driver for the Genoa Windows VGA 24 VLB video card...

the suggestion to deploy SNAP should provide a viable and hopefully better result.

[Dave Yeo]

The question is whether he has applied any fixpaks, which from the sound of it, he likely hasn't.
The other question is which driver he tried to install. This seems like the best bet, https://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/system/drivers/video/CL_54xx_041.zip.
Getting it to work with a wide screen monitor is questionable too, so perhaps best would be to apply the fixpak then SNAP.
Actually, reading the SNAP readme, it doesn't seem to support the  Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426 chipset, can't find it in the driver either, the oldest is the CL-GD5430. Need the PCI number to be sure.

[clh333]

Thank you all for your responses.

The machine is running OS/2 Warp 3 on a VESA local bus motherboard.  No fixpacks have been applied.

The video card is a Genoa Windows VGA 24 (model 8500 VL) which features a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426 chipset.  I downloaded the driver file for this chipset from Hobbes, read the README files and tried to install the driver.  Installation of the files went well until I was asked to specify the monitor; I couldn't, and the install left me with an unstable system.

The Genoa card probably came with a supplemental or "utility" disk when packaged by the manufacturer, but if I recall correctly this card was purchased second-hand from eBay and no disk was supplied.  Furthermore, the Viewsonic display didn't exist when the card was produced, so I would have to find an analogue.

The default display parameters for the OS are VGA 640x480 256 colors.  I know the Genoa card can do better and was trying to find a better resolution and bit depth.  But, as I say, I am not very experienced with the OS and don't really know what's possible or how to achieve it.  I thank you all for your help.

-CH-

[Dave Yeo]

Sounds like this card, https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/graphics-cards/E-H/GENOA-SYSTEMS-CORPORATION-XVGA-WINDOWSVGA-24-MODEL-90.html
The problem with old video drivers is you had to specify the refresh rates, clock rates etc of your monitor, which varied, especially with older monitors which had fixed settings. Likely the documentation had a list of monitors or there is a way to create a monitor setting. Had to do similar with old XServer, where if you could find the frequencies of your monitor, you'd enter into the config file.
Without documentation, it may be hard to get the card working. One option is to find a newer card, perhaps an ATI or such, most were supported back then.

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

...The default display parameters for the OS are VGA 640x480 256 colors.  I know the Genoa card can do better and was trying to find a better resolution and bit depth.  But, as I say, I am not very experienced with the OS and don't really know what's possible or how to achieve it.  I thank you all for your help.

-CH-

So I'm curious, when the WPS (Work Place Shell) comes up and you see your OS/2 Desktop, are you able to select the "OS/2 System => System Setup => Screen" object?

I have had SNAP deployed here for some years now so I am not 100% sure, but I am nearly certain that this is the standard OS/2 "screen-setup" object. If that objects exists on your machine, you should be able to open it up and select a higher resolution and colour depth. Of course these will be driven by the system's ability to recognize the display montior hardware, but it's worth a try in order to avoid getting stuck with the ancient VGA resolution.

[Dave Yeo]

Hi Dariusz, before monitors supported EDID, you really did have to set things up manually for your monitor, and depending on the monitor specs you entered, the screen object would have shown the possibilities I assume. I only had a VGA monitor back in the Warp v3 days and don't remember the screen object.
Needed a Win3.1 video driver too before GRADD.
From XF86Config for example,

Code: [Select]

# Any number of monitor sections may be present

Section "Monitor"

#    Identifier  "AST svga-lr"

# HorizSync is in kHz unless units are specified.
# HorizSync may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY.  REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.

#    HorizSync   30-70

#    HorizSync  30-64         # multisync
#    HorizSync  31.5, 35.2    # multiple fixed sync frequencies
#    HorizSync  15-25, 30-50  # multiple ranges of sync frequencies

# VertRefresh is in Hz unless units are specified.
# VertRefresh may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY.  REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.

#    VertRefresh 50-130

EndSection

Some video drivers such as the ATI Mach 64 would probe the monitor and try to figure it out. This blew up my original VGA monitor by over driving and breaking the fly cable, looked like a lightning storm in the back of the monitor.

[clh333]

If I go to system setup the only option I have for screen resolution is 640x480x16.  If I go to selective install then for display I have several driver options including the "blitter" (recommended by the Hobbes driver) for Cirrus Logic 5426.  It may be these drivers were installed when I tried to update the display driver (and failed).  I may also have selected "generic VGA" when setting up the machine, thinking I could change it later.

If I invoke the system information tool I get an error screen.

Screen shots attached.

-CH-

[Dave Yeo]

Reading the readme from the driver, I guess you could try to hunt down the DOS drivers which seem to include the monitor utility, it likely would run on OS/2's Dos session. Or there might be a generic monitor that is good enough like SuperVGA or IIRC, Warp came with a generic SuperVGA driver, which, while not accelerated, would at least give more colours and 800x600 resolution.
The driver also mentions the display.log and dspinstl.log if you want to look and perhaps remove any files that were added during the aborted driver install.