NEW MACHINE NO WORKING

[Yello1]

OK Just got a new machine, Geoforce II Hollywood MX 4xAGP, Soundblaster Live, P4 1.4, 100 ATAHD, Windows ME.  First thing off the bat my Sidewinder Joy installation is screwy system says its ok but the install check con doesnt work says stick not connected (USB).  Now at game start AH I get garbage screen at all but 600x800 video and there I get blinky screen, if I get into game at 600x800 I get very very slow and when I try to go anywhere from tower I get host con lost!!!  What do I Do ???

[Lephturn]

Start with running a scandisk and a defrag.

Now go download the latest official drivers for your sound and video card and install them.

Download DirectX 8 and install it.

If you use a VIA based mainboard, be sure to get the latest 4-in-1 drivers.

Do you have any IRQ conflicts?

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Sean "Lephturn" Conrad - Aces High Chief Trainer

A proud member of the mighty Flying Pigs
http://www.flyingpigs.com

Check out Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH articles and training info!

[bloom25]

Leph, it's a P4 system, there are no VIA chipsets currently available for that processor.  Only the i850 chipset currently supports it. (Rambus ram.   bleech! )


Sounds like an IRQ conflict to me as well.

I don't know about dx8 though...  It probably won't hurt anything, but I doubt it fixes much.  I'd probably also try updating the sidewinder drivers.  They should still be available from www.microsoft.com/sidewinder




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bloom25
-MAW-
(Formerly of the)
THUNDERBIRDS

[Lephturn]

Heh, yeah I missed that part Bloom.

Uh... get an Athlon?    

Concur with Boom... sounds like a conflict of some sort.  The SBLive can be a real pain in the butt to get working right and keep it from conflicting with other stuff.

Do this yellow1:

From the Start menu choose Programs | Accessories | System Tools | System Info.  Under the Hardware Resources folder, choose the IRQs folder.  Copy down what you see there and paste it in a message here.  That will be a good start.  

------------------
Sean "Lephturn" Conrad - Aces High Chief Trainer

A proud member of the mighty Flying Pigs http://www.flyingpigs.com

Check out Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH articles and training info!

[This message has been edited by Lephturn (edited 04-11-2001).]

[bloom25]

  Lephturn, you are right, the solution is to buy an Athlon system.  (Faster & Cheaper.   )

More to the point, I'd guess a conflict is the problem.  Once he posts the IRQ list we can know for sure.



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bloom25
-MAW-
(Formerly of the)
THUNDERBIRDS

[Yello1]

Took machine back, guy looked at it tested says no conflicts - each USB shares a IRQ with other items, one shares with the video board, but he said thats ok?  The joy stick oddly started working on install attempt ten or so, no idea why. But it works. My initial problem with AH was solved as well, I had old monitor and video wasn't working with it with this system got a new Monitor now, can play AH BUT, it flickers still sometimes gets jerky in flak and when tracers flying. Not what I paid for a new machine for!  Any ideas on this?  I have Direct 8, no new drivers for the Side Pro II that I can see.  Geoforce has two downloads a TNTw9xexe and a win9xzip, not sure which to use, my board is geoforce nvidia II hollywood?

[Yello1]

Ohh and my modem wont connect over 28 K!!! the same number I got 56 easy on this older machine. WTF!!!! any ideas ? - its a motorola modem.

[Skuzzy]

The Motorola modems are junk.

Don't let someone tell you that sharing the interrupt with the video card is ok.  It is not ok.
Interrupt sharing is the one thing that will lead to system unstability and poor performance.
Whoever told you it is ok to share interrupts does not know a lot about building reliable systems.  The fact they stuffed a Motorola modem in the computer tells me they are pretty clueless and have not done thier homework.

------------------
Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net

[bloom25]

Anybody who tells you that anything sharing an IRQ with the video card is ok doesn't know much about computers.  Will it work, maybe, but will there be problems of some sort, probably.

(Totally agree with you Skuzzy on the modems.   )

I already know what the problem was.  You have a USB joystick and the IRQ that your USB controller was using was the same as your video card.  It most likely still is, that's probably why your video is so choppy.
Another possibility is that the connection lights on the taskbar are causing stuttering.  This is pretty common.  There are numerous posts here that tell you how to disable that icon.  (My recent "lockups" post tells you how as well I believe.)



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bloom25
-MAW-
(Formerly of the)
THUNDERBIRDS

[Yello1]

Ok so how do I change the IRQ settings? 1 - 15 all have items on them and most more than one?

[Yello1]

Oh the 28800 problem is fixed, I switched the computers between phone lines, apparently phone line 2 is not right, cant get over 2900 on it, getting 49K connect now. BUt to the IRQ, here is the list

IRQ 0 System Timer
IRQ 1 Standard 101/102 Keyboard
IRQ 2 Programable interrupt controller
IRQ 3 Motorola SM56 WDM Device
IRQ 3 Intel(r) 82801BA/BAM SMBuscontr2443
IRQ 3 ACPI IRQ Holder For PCI Steering
IRQ 3 ACPI IRQ Holder For PCI Steering
IRQ 4 Com Port COM1
IRQ 5 Creative SB Live Value WDM
IRQ 6 Standard Floppy isk Controller
IRQ 7 Printer Port LPT1
IRQ 8 System CMOS/realtime clock
IRQ 9 SCI IRQ used by ACPI bus
IRQ 9 Intelr 82801 BA/BAM USB Host Con 2
IRQ 9 ACPI IRQ Holder For PCI Steering
IRQ10 MPU-401 Compatible MIDI device
IRQ11 NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
IRQ11 Realtek RTL8139A PCI Ethernet
IRQ11 ACPI IRQ Holder For PCI Steering
IRQ11 ACPI IRQ Holder For PCI Steering
IRQ12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port
IRQ13 Numeric Data Processor
IRQ14 Intellr 82801BA Ultra ATA Storage Con
IRQ14 Primary IDE con (dual fifo)
IRQ15 Intellr 82801BA Ultra ATA Storage Con
IRQ15 Secondary IDE control (dual fifo)


What can I fix to stop the stutter flicker lockups and discos? Again the system is Win ME and P4 1.4 gig and the above GeForce Hollywood and SoundBlaster Live

[bloom25]

"Took machine back, guy looked at it tested says no conflicts - each USB shares a IRQ with other items, one shares with the video board, but he said thats ok? "

What does he think this means!!!!!!!!!!!!:

"IRQ11 NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
IRQ11 Realtek RTL8139A PCI Ethernet"

I'll bet money that he put the ethernet card in Pci slot 1 (the one under the video card).  Remove it and put it in a different slot.  Problem fixed.

Basically your video card and ethernet card are sharing an interupt.  This is EXACTLY what I thought was wrong.  Your new problem is that you don't exactly have a free interupt.  If you don't use your serial port you might consider diabling com1 and letting the network card use IRQ 4.  If you aren't using the network card, just go to start>settings>control panel> system > device manager tab > network adapters > click "realtek etc etc" and then click "disable in this hardware profile."

If you aren't using the network card this just turns it off.  If you ever want to use it, just uncheck the box and restart.

Who built the system, or what brand is it?    

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bloom25
-MAW-
(Formerly of the)
THUNDERBIRDS

[This message has been edited by bloom25 (edited 04-13-2001).]

[Yello1]

Ok I do not use the ethernet card, got it only for when this stupid square mile town I just moved into gets cable (my town five miles away was first area in country to get it took tenyears or whatever it was to get here?grgrg).  For now though its just junk, so I have disabled it. Will see how it works and post to here.  DLing a driver for my SBlive, but its not for version 5.1, how can I tell my SB version? Thanks Bloom, as to who this is, it is a small foreigner owned computer making place, Compu Tech in south Jersey.  Not likely to go there again, though the machine is precisely the stuff I want, no extras, and cost was lower than the same stuff in the super store (where you cant get what you want anyway). Still tho, the guys putting the machines together do not encourage me (seeing them now in tech support role). Er Vern how you open this here new P4 case? Quote unquote, well his name was Dimitri or something actually heh Thanks again.

[Yello1]

Ok changed the above, tried to update the SB driver (said I had best one already) and did update video driver. Still getting flickering and a stutter that is online and off and is mostly constant. It gets worse with tracers and flak noises. Flak noise reall drives it up. I was dropping alot too, though this may have been network as after this afternoon I ran all night (though with stutter). I can not turn off my icon in Earthlink, I toggle icon off in System and in Earthlink, but it displays a tool bar icon with status on it if you open it no matter what. Any Earthlink peeps got ideas, if not anyone got ideas for better ISP? Basically this problem is still the same at this point so new ideas ?

[Yello1]

Ok guys just went on to check things out, still the same top screen flicker until in game then bottom screen flicker. Asked around and three gusy responded to having the same problem. ALL of us used Earthlink BUT I at least get the problem offline as well as on. Another string here talks about this problem as well. So unless Earthlink is somehow causing trouble offline not sure thats it (and earthlink worked well on other machine). Also ALL of us had either Win ME (three of us do) or WIn 2000.  I begin to think its a WIN ME/2k issue or a combo of that and something (at least one of us also had GeForce2).  Enough peeps that I dont think its a personal IRQ conflict issue, sounds more like a AH conflict or bug. Any ideas ?