irq's and win2k

[gordanfreeman]

here is my problem:
i have been trying to get my new audigy 2 zs sound card to work for months now. creative's tech support thus far has been next to worthless, sending me on wild goose chase after wild goose chase. my best lead yet for my problem (random crashes/system lockups mainly while gaming) is an irq conflict. looking at my system resources in win2k it seems as though the card is on its own irq... a shared channel but nothing else is using it so likely not a problem, but i want to make sure.

my main question is this: creative suggested that worse come to worse, switch the PCI slot i install the card to in hopes of clearing up the irq conflict. being that the card is already supposedly on its own irq, will this really do anything? i really do not feel like switching the card between every one of my 6 PCI slots and then testing (it can take upwards of an hour before the system locks up sometimes) in between each switch.

also, any other suggestions that may help clear up my problem would be greatly appreciated.

 

[LiLithTecH]

Are any of the other PCI slots in USE?

Does your motherboard allow you to disable the UNUSED PCI slots in the BIOS?

There is no way on this earth that a Creative Soundcard uses only one IRQ.
They have since the AWE32 came out been notorious for stealing as many
IRQ and System Resources as they can.

What ERROR(s) are logged in the EVENT LOG?
What other PCI DEVICES are installed?
What games does it lockup in?
Running any software in the background (i.e. Antivirus, Firewall) when gaming?

 

[Smilin]

Don't let some 1987 thinking get mixed in with your troubleshooting.


Go to device manager and expand 'Computer'. It will tell you what type of HAL you are using.

On modern ACPI systems there isn't really such a thing as an IRQ conflict. You are no longer limited to 15 interrupts and interrupts no longer correspond to a trace going into the CPU. It's packet based communication now. This is why you find your ability to change resources is greyed out.

Also if you want to renegotiate your IRQs just boot once with the card out of the system then put it back in.

 

[gordanfreeman]

smilin its funny you said that acpi doesnt allow for irq conflicts... because one of the first things creatives wonderful *sarcasm* tech support told me when brining up the possibility of an irq conflict was to switch my pc from an acpi to standard pc HAL. yea that didnt work at all.

and what lilithtech said about my card using more than one irq... when i look at my device manager it only lists the audigy as using one irq. maybe it is using more but the computer isnt telling me. not to mention if a card uses a ton of system resources, what would be the point of getting an add-in card opposed to onboard audio? oh well.

i believe i have come up with the problem, however. maybe you guys would have been able to point this out if i had given my mobo specs from the start. apparently it is a fairly common occurance for audigy cards to have conflicts with the onboard audio codecs in mobo's w/ Via chipsets, which i have. in searching on google i have seen at least 3-4 other instances of people having problems w/ a Via board and an audigy. one place said that it was an issue w/ the onboard audio codecs not wanting to give up their duties as the audio source, even when disabled in the BIOS. I have yet to confirm this with either creative or Asus/Via but it seems to exist w/ no fixes yet.

anyways now i get stuck w/ a new problem: unless asus/creative can give me a better answer i am stuck with either buying a new non-Via mobo or letting my audigy card sit doing nothing. either way i am basically losing money as it is too late to return the audigy card for a refund.

 

[huesmann]

You HAVE disabled the on-board sound in the BIOS, haven't you?

 

[gordanfreeman]

yes i have. thats the wierd thing... from what i heard even when disabled in the BIOS there are conflicts

 

[gordanfreeman]

called asus and they never heard of this problem before... hmm

 

[johnjkr1]

You never want to switch HAL's. You can really only do that with a reinstall. There have long been problems with creative cards and older VIA chipsets, especially the older KT133-kt133a-kt266/s boards. If you have one of those, there really is not much you can do. One question, does the system work fine without the creative card installed?

If not, you might as well just sell the audigy 2 and buy a different sound card.

There is a good discussion of the issue here:

http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=29

be sure to check out page 2, they have links to an unofficial patch that many people have had success with

 

[gordanfreeman]

yes the system works fine w/ the audigy 2 uninstalled/removed; just using the onboard audio works fine.

ill check out that link you posted too. anyways...

asus just called me back. the BS creative gave me about swithcing HALs w/out reinstalling may be my problem. asus said to format/reinstall to get standard PC running instead of acpi. hopefully this fixes my problem, tho i wont know til later tonite now with format/reinstall having to be done :disgust:

 

[johnjkr1]

You do not want to run standard pc. That is specifically intended for computers without ACPI.

 

[gordanfreeman]

how else do you suggest i rule out an irq conflict w/out a doubt?

 

[johnjkr1]

It's not an IRQ problem. You could have a defective card, a bad driver, bad ram, etc. Modern PC's are designed to share IRQ's. You need to make sure it is not in the closest slot to the agp card, of course. What model motherboard do you have again?

 

[gordanfreeman]

asus a7v8x-x

 

[gordanfreeman]

reformatting/reinstalling win2k under Standard PC HAL instead of ACPI may have done the trick... i had one crash about 30 minutes in, and after that nothing so far. i just finished a nearly 3 hour session of Day of Defeat (one of the games i regularly experienced problems with) without a hitch. hopefully this keeps up or i will be really lost.

 

[huesmann]

I had a similar problem with that board. I tried several different sound cards, but not the onboard sound. Perhaps I should have tried that. My problem was that games would lock up totally frozen and like the last 1/2 sec of sound looping. It would require a hard reset. Problems went away with a new nForce2 board.

 

[LiLithTecH]

Originally posted by: gordanfreeman
yes i have. thats the wierd thing... from what i heard even when disabled in the BIOS there are conflicts

Win2k and WinXP generally do not care and override what the BIOS settings are (with ACPI enabled).
Using the STANDARD HAL allows you to CONTROL the IRQ/System Resources.

Originally posted by: johnjkr1

You do not want to run standard pc. That is specifically intended for computers without ACPI.

ACPI is for people who do not know how to set up IRQ and System Resources properly.
STANDARD PC settings are fine if you know how to properly setup your devices.

Originally posted by: Smilin
Don't let some 1987 thinking get mixed in with your troubleshooting.

Your such a TOOL.

 

[gordanfreeman]

Originally posted by: huesmann
My problem was that games would lock up totally frozen and like the last 1/2 sec of sound looping. It would require a hard reset. Problems went away with a new nForce2 board.

that exactly describes my problem. hopefully i dont have to resort to shelling out another $60 for a new mobo (even tho the nforce2 boards do look oh so sweet )