STOP Message with Dell 450M (Trap 7F&0A)

MORE INFORMATION

Dell has confirmed that a problem exists with Dell 450Ms (BIOS revisions including A08, A10, A11, and A12) with the 16 megabyte memory modules and Windows NT. Windows NT may trap occasionally with a Trap 0x0000007F (Unexpected Kernel Mode Trap) with an opcode of 6 (illegal opcode) or trap 0x0000000A. The traps appear to occur due to a BIOS problem on the Dell 450Ms. The problem can be resolved by either slowing the machine down to a slower speed (16 MHz) or by doing the following.

To correct the BIOS problem on the Dell 450M, do the following:

1. Start the computer with an MS-DOS floppy disk with DEBUG.COM.
2. Run Debug and issue the following commands:

   - o 28 2b
   - i 24
   (you will see a value of 11)
   - o 28 2b
   - o 24 31

3. Restart the computer by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL. Do not power cycle the computer.

This setting stays in effect until the computer is turned back on after being turned off. At that time, you will need to perform the above steps again. The above changes introduce a wait cycle and turn pipeline mode on for the computer. There will be a slight performance degradation due to doing this, but it shouldn't be a noticeable change.

NOTE: Dell is currently testing this fix and will provide a more appropriate way of correcting this problem soon. No time frame is available at this time. Contact Dell Computer Corp. for more information on this issue.

The Dell products included here are manufactured by Dell Computer Corp., a vendor independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding these products' performance or reliability.