Author Topic: SB16 Emulation & IRQ (Read 451 times)

LLv34_Snefens · « **on:** January 13, 2003, 02:30:25 PM »

Last week my Win98SE suddenly refused to start up. DOS worked fine, surface scans on HD showed nothing, but no matter what I would just end up with a blank screen if I tried to load windows and have to Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Anyway that's not my question. I subsequently formated and installed winXP and it has AFAIK worked flawless. I went through some trouble getting my connection up, since I only had Win98-drivers for it, but once I got it hooked up, the rest went without problems.
At last I also got AH back up, but to my horror my problems with CTD returned. I had this problem for 2 months or so after 1.10 came out, before they at last disappeared, maybe because I disabled the SB16 emulation.
I wanna try this again hoping it will solve it, but not sure how I do that with WinXP.

Also, going through Skuzzy's "Hints and Tips" I noticed that it could be an idea to make sure that there are no IRQ-conflicts, but how do I find out what IRQ is set for what device, and how do I change it?

PS: Skuzzy, when disabling processes on your list, disabling "telephony" made it impossible for me to connect to the internet. I have ADSL, but when setting it up I set up as pretty much as regular modem (Phone# is 40 times "X" tho). Maybe that's what you meant by "XP users may not be able to disable this", but I read it as I could TRY to disable it, but it might not work (which it didn't)

So, SB16 emulation off, where?
IRQ, where to see and change?

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Ylil. Snefens
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Skuzzy · « **Reply #1 on:** January 13, 2003, 03:00:32 PM »

Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->System Information

is where you can find out what IRQ's are being used.

I was afraid Telephony would do this on XP. On W2K, you can disable it without losing your Internet connectivity.
Although I have heard with SP3 on W2K, this may not be true any longer. Apparently, a lot of XP code went into the W2K SP3 update.

Oops. Not sure about the SB16 Emulation though. I have not given it much thought.

You might want to send me the DXDIAG output and I will be happy to take a look and see if I can spot anything.

LLv34_Snefens · « **Reply #2 on:** January 13, 2003, 04:41:33 PM »

Here is my IRQ list. It was a bit worse but I disabled the com- and printer ports since i never use those. IRQ#9 had 4 devices listed before that. Now only #7 has two, even tho #2 and 5 looks free?
I haven't tried if this has solved the CTD yet.

I also added my DxDiag.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #3 on:** January 13, 2003, 05:02:43 PM »

I might suggest switching the video driver to 30.82 drivers as they seem to be pretty stable.

Also, the sound card is not going to like sharing interrupts with that USB port.

You have an ATM adapter in that system? Are you running any software for that keyboard? Get rid of it if you are.

LLv34_Snefens · « **Reply #4 on:** January 13, 2003, 05:54:30 PM »

Just tested AH with the settings in my previous post. still CTD.
So I should use official nvidia drivers instead of Asus's card specific? OK

The ATM adapter is for my ADSL

Software for keyboard? Well, I tried to find drivers for my cordless mouse and keyboard, but Logitech's support for drivers (for my mouse and keyboard at least) stink, and I can only get half the features now that I had under 98SE. So I won't loose much going back to windows standard anyway.

Now, how do I put the SB Live! on it's own IRQ?

I don't think the USB controller (my CH Pro Pedals) like it much eiter. They will loose all calibration and all I can do is set it on autopilot and quickly go through their full range of movement to bring them back to normal. Happens so often that I almost don't notice it anymore

PS: this also happend when I had 98SE.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #5 on:** January 13, 2003, 06:00:59 PM »

That may mean moving the SB card to another PCI slot, or going into the BIOS and forcing an IRQ to be assigned to the slot it is in.

It depends on the motherboard.

LLv34_Snefens · « **Reply #6 on:** January 13, 2003, 07:34:25 PM »

I found where to change it in the Bios, and set the SB to the free #5, but when I checked in the System Information, the USB formly at #7 had moved to #5 with it. Will putting the card in another PCI-slot help this?

Anyway, it's getting too late here. I'm off to bed and will look at it tomorrow. Thanks for trying to help with this.

LLv34_Snefens · « **Reply #7 on:** January 13, 2003, 07:51:37 PM »

Sorry, not all in bed yet, just found the mentioning of that Sb16 emulation. http://arstechnica.com/guide/building/bios/bios-1.html
15M - 16M Memory Hole/Memory Hole
Options: Enable, Disable
This should always be disabled for modern systems. In the old days, ISA cards used the 15th megabyte for their own purposes. Modern ISA cards don't need this (EISA or PNP-ISA) and neither do PCI cards with one major exception -- Sound Blaster PCI128 and Sound Blaster Live cards like this to be enabled. It essentially removes 1MB of your RAM, so consider replacing the sound card instead. The SB16 emulation of those two cards is the business here -- don't install it and this shouldn't be a problem. Nevertheless, it's another suspect for crashes associated with the Sound Blaster. To replace SB16 emulation, try using VDMSound, which gives emulated sound for DOS programs in NT4, 2000, and XP, and doesn't need any special drivers.

Since I can't find where to disable the sb16 emulation (it's not same place as it was with win98SE), I enabled the memory hole from my bios. I'll loose the 1 MB according to the article, but hopefully it will work.

straffo · « **Reply #8 on:** January 14, 2003, 01:43:28 AM »

Unfortunatly it's not likely to change anything snef.

Concerning SB16 emulation I'll check on my home machine but if you don't have an entry in the device manager you obviouly don't have SB16 emulation at all

LLv34_Snefens · « **Reply #9 on:** January 14, 2003, 07:14:44 AM »

Good news is that I now have a seperate IRQ for each number. I had to put the SB-card in an other PCI slot, for it to "break loose" from the USB.

Bad news is that it hasn't helped anything. I'm still getting CTD's. Looking on System Information I found the page about conflicts/sharing, and there seems to be some. Is this normal or something I should try to change, how?

LLv34_Snefens · « **Reply #10 on:** January 14, 2003, 02:50:24 PM »

If you can see anything from this, here is a typical CTD.
In this one I take off from a Ju87, climb to alt with aid of wind and dive down to bomb. I release two, but before they impact, I CTD. Less than 5 min after start of AH.

ctd.zip