SYMPTOMS
If you use the
/3GB switch in the Boot.ini file on a Microsoft Windows XP Professional-based workstation, and the workstation is configured with certain graphics adapters, Windows may exhaust the memory that is available for kernel services. Therefore, Windows disk services may fail with unrecoverable file system corruption, and you may receive "Delayed Write Disk" error messages that are similar to the following:
Delayed Write Failed
Unable to write file file name
The problem may occur shortly after Windows is started.
RESOLUTION
Service pack information
To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Windows XP. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
322389 How to obtain the latest Windows XP service pack
Hotfix information
A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in this article. Only apply it to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next Windows XP service pack that contains this hotfix.
To resolve this problem immediately, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services telephone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
Note In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.
The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the
Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.
Date Time Version Size File name
--------------------------------------------------------------
04-May-2004 19:13 5.1.2600.1524 1,912,320 Ntkrnlmp.exe
04-May-2004 19:13 5.1.2600.1524 1,968,128 Ntkrnlpa.exe
04-May-2004 19:13 5.1.2600.1524 1,940,480 Ntkrpamp.exe
04-May-2004 21:07 5.1.2600.1524 2,064,256 Ntoskrnl.exe
Note This hotfix resolves the problem of data corruption that may occur if you use the
/3GB switch on a Windows XP Professional-based workstation that is configured with a graphics adapter that consumes many system page table entries. However, the hotfix does not resolve performance issues that are caused by a graphics adapter driver. To resolve performance issues that are caused by a graphics adapter driver, contact the manufacturer of the graphics adapter to determine if updated drivers are available.
For information about how to contact manufacturer of the graphics adapter, click the appropriate article number in the following list to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
65416
Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, A-K
60781
Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, L-P
60782
Hardware and Software Third-Party Vendor Contact List, Q-Z
WORKAROUND
You may be able to work around this problem by using the
/USERVA=2944 Boot.ini option to reduce the available user memory address space.
For additional information about the /USERVA switch, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
316739
How to use the /USERVA switch in the Boot.ini file to tune /3GB configurations
This setting should produce over 90 KB of free system PTES. This should be enough to satisfy any operating system, database and backup usage.
Important Microsoft Product Support Services strongly recommends using a range of memory for the
/USERVA switch that lies within the range of 2900-3030. This range is wide enough to provide a large enough pool of system page table entries for all currently observed issues.