SoundBlaster Audigy screwing things up??

[BadGoat]

Ok, I just bought me a new 2500+Barton but everytime I had my FSB set at 166(333) I would always get the message "CPU Host Clock Failing! Please check settings in BIOS at the POST screen. Now I tried everything from replacing the RAM, RMA'ing the CPU and getting a new one, to reformatting and reinstalling and nothing seemed to work.

Then I thought of just taking all of my PCI cards out of theirs slots and see what happened. I started with my Sound Blaster Audigy and BAM! Everything worked just fine. Put it back in and same ol' problems again. Tried moving it to a different PCI slot and still same problems. Took it out again and voila problem fixed again!

I put the Audigy back in so I could have decent sound but I have my FSB on my 2500+Barton cranked down to 133(266) so that way it isn't stressing my soundcard on the PCI bus and at least I can still use it.

Does anybody know of a setting I am overlooking in my BIOS to get this stupid soundcard to run stable when I have things running at 166(333)?? Or does anyone know how to fix this other than the obvious getting a new mobo with the nForce 2 Ultra chipset...funds are low right now, lol.

I am running the original KT400 chipset with the latest BIOS that Epox offers. Any help would be greatly appreciated


__________________
Athlon XP 2500+Barton
ATI Radeon 9700pro (FIC)[3.6 Cat]
Epox mobo 8K9A2 VIA KT400(Hyp 4in1's V4.48)
512MB PC2700 Kingston RAM
Soundblaster Audigy
WD HD 80GB@7200rpm
Black Aluminum Chieftec Server Case
Windows XP (Home) Service Pack 1

 

[Boonesmi]

where do you have the host clock jumper set on the motherboard?

 

[BadGoat]

there is only one jumper for this on my mobo and my only options are 100MHz or 133MHz and at the present moment it is set at 133(266), but in the BIOS it recognizes everything for the 333MHz FSB. The KT400 chipset DOES support the 333MHz FSB or at least in theory it does. I have checked Epox's website and AMD's website and they say the 8K9A2 mobo with the 2500+Barton is compatible.

And like I said everything runs just fine when I yank out the SoundBlaster Audigy card out of my computer. By doing this I am able to crank up my FSB to 166(333) with no problems whatsoever. But the minute I put it back in that is when everything goes right back down the toilet. So the only thing I can think of is that by cranking up the FSB to 333 it puts a strain on the Audigy which I don't know why it would as the dividers kick in which puts the PCI bus at stock speeds....

I am just really baffled here, lol. And I want to use that 333 FSB soooo bad, hehe.

 

[BadGoat]

*bump* anyone else have any ideas??

 

[BadGoat]

bump

 

[AngryGames]

Bad: your board should support a 166FSB being a KT400. Does this problem occur no matter what PCI slot you put the Audigy in? I prefer to run my Audigy in the 4th or 5th PCI slot (its the only PCI card I have in my board).

Does it still do the same thing when your FSB is set to 133/266?

check that your PCI clocks are set to 32 (they will run 64 but 32 is most stable).

also check to see if your Audigy is sharing an IRQ with anything.

if you are manually upping the FSB to 166, check to see what freq the PCI/AGP bus is running. Audigy's don't like 40Mhz PCI clocks at all in my experience. let me know if any of this helps, and if not, let me know that too. I don't own an Epox, but will help as much as I can =)

 

[BadGoat]

AngryGames: When I manually set my FSB to 166 my divider automatically kicks in for my AGP/PCI bus which is 66/33MHz when FSB is 166 (I am not able to manually set the dividers, it is automatic).

Two, this problem occurrs no matter what PCI slot my soundcard is in...happens all of the time. But the second I put the FSB back down to 133(266) I have no issues whatsoever and everything runs peachy king.

Also, my PCI clocks are already set to 32....should I maybe try going lower? like to 16 or something like that? or will it botch things all up?

And the current IRQ is 5 for the soundcard....I will have to do some more checking to see if anything else is sharing that IRQ...

I have already done the obvious things....Updated BIOS, Cleared CMOS, reformatted, tried different CPU, replaced RAM, tried different PSU...nothing fixes it....only thing that does fix my problem is when I take the soundcard out...then everything can run on the 166(333)FSB and the second I put it back in is when I get the problems again. So I am at least convinced it is my soundcard giving me problems. However I don't understand why because when I up the FSB to 166(333) the divider kicks in at 66/33 which technically should be adding no more stress on my soundcard then there was when I was running at 133(266)...go figure, lol.

Thank you for replying and anymore ideas and help would be greatly appreciated