IRQ Woows!

[vhelp]

Evening all,

I need help with my IRQ. I still haven't mastered how
to keep them in check whenever I install new hardware.

Anyways, for some reason, I can't seem to get my onboard
USB chip (motherboard) AND my Turtle Beach sound card to
stop sharing the same IRQ!! No matter where move the
sound card, my onboard USB seems to follow it and use the
same IRQ. I can't figure out how to get my BIOS to assign
my sound card to a certain IRQ.

MY System is:
AMD 900mhz CPU running in an
MSI K7T Pro 2-A motherboard w/ VIA KT133 chipset

Anybody have this board combo and knows how to "Tame" it,
please give me your EXPERT tips or process procedure
to overcome ANY IRQ conflict before then occur when
installing new hardware?????

Thank your very much!

[monsoon01]

hi,
i'm having almost the same problem, my turtle beach sound card and on board usb are sharing IRQ settings, doesn't bother me much since i never use the usb, but I have lots of IRQs and it wont let me switch either around, maybe its a glitch with the via chipset? or even the sound card itself(which, in my opinion, is the best 6 channel 5.1 card out, and super cheap too ). so if you guys can help us out here, much thanx.

[vhelp]

monsoon01,

Two things, ...

1) I have like 4 free IRQs at this time. And, yes, I use only one USB
device, and maybe a 2nd, later on, if I can fix my IRQ assignment.
I have a total of 6 PCI slots. Here is my currently PCI setup:
-------------------------------------------------------------
-(E) ---- -(E) ---- DVC II ----- SND ---- VID --- AGP (E)
-|-------|---------8-----------8--------8-------|
-|-------|---------8-----------8--------8-------|
-|-------|---------8-----------8--------8-------|
-------------------------------------------------------------
(e)=empty

Bare in mind that this mb (motherboard) has an on board sound
chip, but have it disabled. I think I will unplug my sound card
and turn sound chip in mb on and see if that clears up the IRQ,
else I hope that someone has an answer to our prayers! Even
if it works, I will not stick with the on board sound chip.
I'll post my results in a moment!
...be right back!

2) I do have the SB Live mp3 5.1 card. But, I yanked that succer out
because it was steeling system rescourses and cpu % speed.
I switched to the Turtle (santa cruz) because it was cheap ($59) and
had 4 spkr or 5.1 (or close enough) and it sounded good enough
for my use. Besides, there are NO sound cards out there that has
TRUE 5.1, or dolby prologic SURROUND sound in them. And, the only
software package that will simulate (or seporate +/- %'age) is those
DVD software players, like powerdvd 3.0, and maybe winDVD. The ONLY
way you'll get the 5.1 or Prologic surround sound is with another card
like a decoder card (seporate of course) or those speakers that have the
5.1 decoder built-in. Or, you'll have to conect your output cord to an
seporate Prologic reciever or something to get the 5.1 sound from THOSE
speakers, and not your sound card's speakers! They kind of trick you
or play those mind games, the way they display 5.1 on those boxes.
I'f memory serves me correctly, I did here something close to 5.1 with
my 5 spkr and sound card (from both my SB live 5.1 and Turtle card) and
sound was only downmixed or simulated into 4 of your speakers plus your
subwoofer. As long as you have powerdvd 3.0 and any kind of 4 spkr
system plus your subwoofer, and any sound card that supports 4 spkr
output, you'll get the same surround sound out of it! No need to go out
and get the SB Live 5.1 or even their NEW SB Live 5.1 card which is out
now. ...IMO, it's just a "pretty" ripoff. IMO, the EAX is the best thing
on the SB cards. Other than that, it's just a big fat slob eating at my cpu!!
Not to put a damper on you or others (above) but that is my opinion

Don't get me wrong. This SB card sounds great, ...but not at the expense
of ANY of my system juice!

[vhelp]

Ok,

here is the scoop. . .
* after taking out my sound card
* turning on my mb sound chip in BIOS and enabling audio
* start windows 98
* everything comes up fine, but NO AUDIO!!
* Under device manager, I get the yello (!) under audio.

Ok, so I don't have the origonal CD that came with this mb!
I lost the CD. Anyway, so I try to load a generic driver. No good!
I can not find a driver for this sound chip, though it's SB compatible.

So, that's about it! Now back to putting my sound card back in.

Are there ANY pc speciallists out there?
Are there ANY Hardware Techy around?
We (I) need your help!

Tanx!

[vhelp]

Well, what do you know... I found my CD!
Ok, in short, I installed the AC97 sound drivers from CD.
All went well and smooth. Restarted window 98 and sound
was on and ready!

I loaded up device manager and checked with the IRQs.
No conflicts with ANY IRQs !!!
But, I'm only limited with 2 spkr output instead of 4. I think
I will continue using this until I've finished with all my testing
of the capture cards I am working with.

But, I still haven't fixed my IRQ problem, because as soon as
I put back my Turtle beach sound card I will have the IRQ
conflicts again!! So, I'm still hoping for an answer!

[KingJohn]

Most if not all PCI card IRQ's are set up by windows, and you cannot change them. A lot of people have moved to USB for printers, mouse etc and free up IRQ's this way. If you don't need your COM1 and COM2 switch them off in BIOS, that will free some more up.

BUT! quite a lot of PCI cards will share IRQ's without a problem. Sometimes you need to install the hardware in a particular order.

[vhelp]

letmeinforgodsake,

Thanks for your response.
Forgot to mention, I did find my CD drivers disk.
I installed them and everything worked out ok.
But, I didn't like the sound quality when I played
my encoded captures, so I went back to my turtle
beach card.

Currently, I have one last IRQ conflict, that being
with my USB (which my PVT usb capture card) and
my DC10+ card. Sometimes they work fine, and
other times, the DC10+ will give me a nitemare,
i.e, color are really bright, or really dark, or squigly
lines, etc.

I will have to do some work on this last IRQ issue
soon. Oh, and yes, I have those com1/come2 and
a few others desabled, but they are NO help to me.
Still have conflicts (the above) even though I have
like 3 or more IRQs available. Bios says no conflicts.
Windows 98 says conflicts! Go figure!

[KingJohn]

Sometimes when you add a new card to a working system you get problems, sometimes the only cure is to trash windows and do a fresh install. I lost count on the number of times I have done this, sometimes moving the cards in the slots will also help. Capture card software has a habit of crashing and leaving the connection open, then a re-boot is the only cure.

I recently added a new 3Dfx graphics card, but had to remove the sound blaster live for it to work, since then I have built up a P4 with all the same cards, not had any problem (so far) but now I have 4 USB's so can add more hardware without the IRQ problems.

New drivers are always better than what was supplied, try to get them for all hardware.

[vhelp]

letmeinforgodsake,

Thanks. I've taken out my DC10+ card for the moment.
I've also noticed that my PVR (USB) caps are slightely less
blocky and picture looks a little bit more cleaner - well,
at least to me it does! ...I could be imagining it, but I'm
not not complaing. Anyways, NO conflicts now. I'm in the
middle of finding the best process for my SVCD creations.
In short, after I cap with the PVR, I have to cut out all the
commercials, and then burn to cd. I found out that I don't
have to do the MUXing bit. But, I have noticed that there
is just a slight bit of encoding going on. Oh, I'm using
Womble mpegVCR app. Have you used it? Currently, it
seems to be the only thing that works for me with VERY
little time on my part. ...could take 10 minutes for a one
hour cap. I've tried tmpgenc, but it takes like, an 1/2 hour
or more just to do MUX audio for a 752mb clip.

Thanks again.

[KingJohn]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-11-05 17:22:11, vhelp wrote:
Oh, I'm using
Womble mpegVCR app. Have you used it?
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Never heard of it, I guess I have been lucky with most downloaded films, not had that many problems, Vdub and TMPGEnc work well for me. As for captures, I have done a few with the hauppauge Wintv card, but with the new German software I can now save to VCD.mpeg ready to burn. Old machine could never capture uncompressed, but this new one does with ease.

I was using Easy cd creator to make the VCD's but the new Roxio Video pack 5 software works very well, it also masters SVCD and DVD's. Only used it twice, but very easy to use and make animated buttons. Never tried a SVCD, I'm happy with 2 disk VCD's until the DVD burners come down in price. Was going to replace the graphics card and tuner with a ATI Radion all in wonder, free up another IRQ, but from what I have heard they are nothing but trouble. Ill stick to what works !

[DiViNeLeFT]

here is an excelent article on IRQs if anyone wants to do a little reading.

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/irq1.html