Q41024: FATAL: Internal Stack Failure, System Halted

Article: Q41024
Product(s): See article
Version(s): 5.00 5.10
Operating System(s): MS-DOS
Keyword(s): ENDUSER | S_QUICKC S_PASCAL H_FORTRAN H_MASM | mspl13_c
Last Modified: 16-MAY-1989

For DOS Version 3.20 or later, the following message is issued by DOS
when too many interrupts occur too quickly and the pool of internal
stack frames is exhausted:

   FATAL: Internal Stack Failure, System Halted

Increasing the number of stacks allocated for use by interrupt
handlers in the STACKS command in CONFIG.SYS usually corrects the
problem.

The syntax is as follows:

STACKS=n,s

n = number of stacks, ranging from 8 to 64, with 9 as the as the default
s = size of each stack, ranging from 32 to 512 bytes, default of 128

For more information about the STACKS command, see Page 805 of the
"MS-DOS Encyclopedia."

This error can occur if network cards, laboratory measurement
instruments, and other devices are in use. They may generate many
hardware interrupts thus exhausting the DOS stack resources.

Note: For MS-DOS Version 3.30 on an IBM-PC, IBM-XT, or
IBM-PC-Portable, the default for n is 0 and s is 0 .

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