Microsoft KB Archive/839490

= &quot;Delayed Write Failed&quot; errors when you use the /3GB switch in Windows XP Professional =

Article ID: 839490

Article Last Modified on 8/29/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows XP Professional

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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 &quot;Delayed Write Disk&quot; error messages that are similar to the following:

Delayed Write Failed

Unable to write file

The problem may occur shortly after Windows is started.



CAUSE
The problem may occur if the graphics adapter on your Windows XP Professional-based workstation consumes many system page table entries (PTE), and sufficient memory addresses are not available for the Windows kernel.



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. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next service pack that contains this hotfix.

To resolve this problem, submit a request to Microsoft Online Customer Services to obtain the hotfix. To submit an online request to obtain the hotfix, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=6294451

Note If additional issues occur or any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. To create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

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

Note 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.



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the &quot;Applies to&quot; section. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2.



MORE INFORMATION
For more information about the standard terminology that is used to describe Microsoft software updates, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

824684 Description of the standard terminology that is used to describe Microsoft software updates

Additional query words: ATI Video Card

Keywords: kbwinxpsp2fix kbwinxppresp2fix kbfix kbbug kbqfe kbhotfixserver KB839490

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