firewire card causes cursor to flicker- hourglass to pointer

[moskowa]

I have installed a Dazzle DV editor (firewire 1394 card) and find that I
have a mouse that flickers rapidly between pointer and hourglass. When I
remove the card the issue goes away. There are no conflicts shown in device
manager and the card is shown as operational in device manager. I have not
put any software on the computer for video editing , prefer to wait until
this issue is resolved. Company sent me a new card that was tested and
have the same issue. Have tried several pci slots - same issue. Have not
tried every slot since modem and network card use those other slots.
After installing card it is recognized by windows and it asks for win 98 SE
CD to install 1394 driver. The card is recognized and the 1394 host
controller is present then in device manager.

I am suspicious that something is running in the background when the card is
installed to give this issue, or some other conflict. I will ask the
company again for help on this. They thought at first there was a IRQ
conflict but I sent them the system txt file and they then thought it was a
bad card.

Anyone else with this sort of issue - and what should I try doing. I also found 2 hotfixes on microsoft website related to firewire but wonder if they apply - Q252183 and Q252958

Thanks for any assistance


al

[lanwater]

I have installed a Dazzle DV editor (firewire 1394 card) and find that I
have a mouse that flickers rapidly between pointer and hourglass. When I
remove the card the issue goes away. There are no conflicts shown in device
manager and the card is shown as operational in device manager. I have not
put any software on the computer for video editing , prefer to wait until
this issue is resolved. Company sent me a new card that was tested and
have the same issue. Have tried several pci slots - same issue. Have not
tried every slot since modem and network card use those other slots.
After installing card it is recognized by windows and it asks for win 98 SE
CD to install 1394 driver. The card is recognized and the 1394 host
controller is present then in device manager.

I am suspicious that something is running in the background when the card is
installed to give this issue, or some other conflict. I will ask the
company again for help on this. They thought at first there was a IRQ
conflict but I sent them the system txt file and they then thought it was a
bad card.

Anyone else with this sort of issue - and what should I try doing. I also found 2 hotfixes on microsoft website related to firewire but wonder if they apply - Q252183 and Q252958

Thanks for any assistance


al

I think it is an IRQ issue. Win98 is pretty bad at sharing irq.
Remove other card you do not need. Go in the bios and disable ports you do not need. I think it would help.

[moskowa]

To followup on your comment - I need to keep the network card in place. perhaps I can not use the modem. Should I disable the parallel port? Or is there a way to reassign mouse IRQ?

alan

[lanwater]

if you do not use the modem take it out. If you do not use the com ports disable them in the bios. Same goes for the parallel port. If you are not using the ide channel ( in case you have scsi drives) disable them.

also run msconfig and uncheck all the programs that start automatically. You can reenable them after you solved your problem.

This said if you upgrade to win2000 or winxp they do much much much better job at sharing IRQ. The only draw back is you would have to upgrade some of your software.

If you do move to a better Operating System I suggest you backup and do a clean install so you do not migrate all the crap that accumulate in your registry over the time.

[moskowa]

one more followup - if no conflicts are noted within device manager, or under properties of each component (mouse, firewire etc) could there still be an IRQ conflict?

I am going to do windows update with the card and then apply hotfixes even if not found as critical update.

[moskowa]

lanwater

An update on progress - with the card installed there were no critical updates needed from Microsoft. I disabled all items in startup via msconfig - no effect. I tried lowering hard ware acceleration down 2 notches - to the position to the right of the minimum - no effect. I applied hotfix Q252183 - no effect. Another hotfix related to firewire Q252958 had already been installed (probably as result of Service Pack). I have not tried any disabling of ports, rather prefer not to if possible. Unless I really thought it would work. Have looked on the internet and found nothing like this issue.

alan

[lanwater]

You can still have an IRQ conflict although win98 device manager does not report it. If you look at the IRQ setting in device manager you will see that many of them are using the same IRQ. Well some devices are unforgiven when it comes to sharing IRQ, especially high throughput devices.

As for disabling the ports you can always reenable them if they do not conflict. Troubleshooting in none evident situation requires trying certain things until you eleminate the problem, unless your have access to very expensive equipement that very few computer outlet have.


Another approach is to load win2000 or xp and sees how it goes. I would do that if I had another spare drive and a copy of the os around. I would not go out and buy the hardware expressely for that purpose.


If you do not want to go through all this or do not have the time then just retun the card and buy a different brand one and hope it would work. This situation might work if the new device has a robust driver for win 98. very few vendor are putting the time to develop good drivers for 98.