Terminal Video Problem Solved (and sound too!)

Hello.

Yes, but this doesn't effectively explain why the problem happens even when only a text mode was used under dosemu, as this shouldn't touch any extended registers. Even the VGA graphic modes shouldn't IMO.
Also there must not be any way to access an extended regs on the boards that have a separate IO space for them (not accesable via VGA regs) and the chipset is set to "plainvga" (nvidia case).
But then it is strange why POST manages to lock up the system. There is probably another port leak somewhere... extra_port_init() looks suspicious. Anyway, the POST-less init looks like a way to go as its problems are minor compared to the complete deadlock.

Hi All

OK I have setup a new version of Dosemu using the binary packages (freedos and 1.0.2.1)
Applied the patchset to a new version of the 1.1.3 download configured :) and made version 1.1.3.7 (w/o the post-less patch). I have not touched the conf files at all. I deleted .dosemu and ran xdosemu once to check that the warning screen and the version number were all pointing to the right place. I have moved the old version of dosdebug and dosemu.bin out of harms way and put the contents of the 1.1.3.7 bin directory in their place and likewise replaced the commands in freedos/dosemu with their updated cousins run xdos to confirm update to 1.1.3.7.

I am now ready to try any settings the 2 of you suggest in the conf files. It would be useful to have these suggested in advance as a) I expect to be re-booting alot and b) you are more likely to get the settings right than my previous trial and error tactics.

One thing I didn't try very much of before was using svgalib (partly on Stas advice and partly because I was losing heart). I do notice that there have been reports of success using this with riva tnt 128 which is in the same group of cards.

Once again thank you both for your assistance so far.

Paul