Singing noise and computer locks up

[foamy]

I have one of those nasty problems that happens only occaisionally.

Playing CM on my Machine, (Win 98, Athlon 850 mHz; Soundblaster live, 250 Mg RAM), and I get a singing noise in the left speaker, computer locks up solid.

I THINK it occurs with a certain combination of sounds from the CM battle field, but can't be sure.

Anyone got an idea what it might be or how I could try to trace the problem.

[Schrullenhaft]

Do you know if your motherboard is based on a VIA chipset ? If it is then there is a patch you can download that affects the 'PCI Latency' which may help with your problematic SoundBlaster Live.

VIA PCI Latency patch

[foamy]

Thanks for the advise Schrullenhaft. Yes I do have the VIA chipset, I downloaded and installed the patch. Now I guess I have to wait and see if the problem still occurs - could be months I suppose, even then "Will I ever know if this patch fixed a problem that only happens a few times each year "??

[Schrullenhaft]

If it happens that infrequently, then I doubt that the patch will fix your problem. Typically the patch will fix a problem that is fairly consistent.

[rbaumhauer]

I was having (what appeared to be) sound-related lockups in CMBO on both Win98SE and Win2K - I have applied the patch mentioned above in 2K and it seems to be working. Will let you know if that changes.

[rbaumhauer]

Well, spoke too soon - got lockups in both Win2K and Win98 last night. This only seemed to start happening after I updated my video drivers in Win98 - I was still using the ancient 6.67s, but I only play one other game (Grand Prix Legends) and they worked well with it. With those, I got a lot of flashing walls and hedges in CM, so I updated to the new 30.82 release. Ever since, lots of lockups - is anybody else getting this? It even locks Win2K up solid - have to do a system reset.

[Schrullenhaft]

I suggest uninstalling your video drivers, setting your video to 'SVGA' (not an NVidia driver). After the requisite reboots reinstall DirectX 8.1 and then reinstall the driver of your choice. Under Win2K I highly recommend something above the 27.xx/28.xx series since the 'white transparency' bug is fixed with those drivers and newer.

As for sound, what sound card do you have installed and what drivers ? Unfortunately the most common card, the SoundBlaster family, seems to have the most problems. The above mentioned patch helps sometimes with some SoundBlaster issues and VIA chipsets. Other times some BIOS updates have addressed the issue, but the problem hasn't been consistenly solved on each occasion. CM creates a lot of sound data and due to the SB's lack of busmastering over PCI, this can lockup the bus and possibly cause problems with video cards and other PCI devices (video will usually be the most perceptible). You may want to experiment with audio off in CM to see if it changes anything for you.

[foamy]

Just some feedback - since loading the VIA patch as suggested, I have not had any sound problems in about 24 hours of game play over the last two weeks

[rbaumhauer]

I am, alas, running a SBLive Value sound card, and I don't doubt that's the real issue if it doesn't handle busmastering properly.

Any suggestions on a replacement?

[Schrullenhaft]

The Voyetra/TurtleBeach Santa Cruz PCI sound cards are pretty good and don't have problems with the VIA chipsets (they busmaster, I believe). They're sometimes hard to find from retailers (Creative almost has that channel completely locked with their products). You should be able to find one for a little less than US$75.

[ August 31, 2002, 08:51 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[Lindan]

Most of th eproblems I had in the last 2 years regarding lockups had to do something with my SbLive!1024. Something is really crappy about them.

[Beckman]

HELP

I did the patch and I get a da da da out of my speakera and my PC is locked.

I just added an NVIDIA GEFORECE 4 MX 420.

I am starting to get frustrated. I got this new box and card to play THIS game, well mostly CMBB. I was fine with CMBO on my old system.

Now I have gone from vid issues to system lock-ups.

Any help out there? There must be a way to make the game playable.

[Schrullenhaft]

Do you have a VIA chipset-based motherboard ? The above patch is only applicable to motherboards that have VIA chipsets.

What motherboard do you have and what sound card ? What Windows version are you running ?

Is the 'da da da' sound only produced while you're in CM or does it come out anytime you're playing a WAV file ?

[Beckman]

See my other thread, the Savage DDR one, about the SPEC's on the MB. We have already discussed it I think, I had a Kp4266 or something.

I was the guy you told to get a GeForce4 card.

SoundBlaster PCI512 is the sound card. I ordered a SoundBlaster 128 with the box but nothing says that in device manager. Driver date is 7.1.2001.

Wife is taking me out for walk to relieve stress. I hope this will play my turns eventually. I have windows XP.

[ August 31, 2002, 02:37 PM: Message edited by: Beckman ]

[Schrullenhaft]

Did you set the 'VGA Share Memory Size' setting in the BIOS to 'disabled' (under Advanced Chipset Features) ? Otherwise your system will assume that there are two video cards (or have some other sort of problem).

Are you using the built-in AC'97 audio or do you have a separate SoundBlaster PCI 128 or PCI 512 card ? The PCI 512 uses the same chip (and most of the same drivers) as the SB Live series, so it should have the same problems. What device is showing up for your sound card and are these drivers dated 7-1-2001 ? There is a driver update for SB PCI 512 dated 10-26-2001 though I have no idea if it is actually newer than what you already have.

If you're using a separate PCI sound card have you disabled the onboard AC'97 audio in the CMOS/BIOS setup (Integrated Peripherals > VIA OnChip PCI Device > VIA-3058 AC97 Audio: disabled) ? You may want to disable the 'MC97 Modem' too (though it probably doesn't register in XP).

I'd also suggest enabling PCI Delay Transaction in the CMOS/BIOS setup (Advanced Chipset Features > CPU & PCI Bridge Control > PCI Delay Transaction: enabled). You may also want to experiment with the 'PCI 1/2 Master 0 WS Write' setting it to disabled

[Beckman]

thank you.

i have SoundBlaster PCI512 listed as the sound card. I ordered a SoundBlaster 128 with the box but nothing says that in device manager. Driver date is 7/1/2001.

I am trying to download that patch from soundblaster. After I reboot I will try to get the BIOS set to your suggestions. I have downloaded and installed the latest driver from NVidia.

Why didn't I have this problem with my PCI TDFX card?

The NVIDIA card seems to have given me this new sound da da da stuck problem, how?

[Beckman]

I wished that VIA PCI Latency patch worked

[Beckman]

All day, still lock up in CMBO after like 3 minutes.

In my BIOS, the VGA Share Memory Size can NOT be disabled, it can be 8MB, 16MB, 32MB. I have it at 8MB.

I did the SB PCI 512 dated 10-26-2001 update. Didn't work. I tried both ways the PCI Delay Transaction, no go.

What a horrible day

[Schrullenhaft]

PCI Latency is the most common culprit for this problem. I don't know why the patch didn't work for you (others have experienced the same problem on the VIA Hardware Forums). Interestingly the KM266 isn't mentioned on the list of supported Northbridge chipsets, so I wonder if that is part of the issue.

The other possible solutions are no where near convenient. The involve disabling ACPI in the CMOS/BIOS setup (Power Management Setup > ACPI function). With this disabled it may also be best to move your SoundBlaster to a PCI slot further away from the video card. The next thing you'll need to do is boot with the XP CD and reinstall XP. This will change the configuration from ACPI to a standard/PNP type computer.

Sharing an IRQ is one problem that the SoundBlasters don't accomodate very well and ACPI forces this scheme. A PNP scheme may allow an unique IRQ for the sound card that may prevent the lockups that you're seeing. The reason that your built-in S3 didn't cause lockups was probably because it didn't reserve an IRQ, while the GeForce 4MX does (as would almost any other AGP card).

During a reinstall I suggest installing the latest VIA 4-in-1's first before any other drivers that don't come with Windows. I'm not sure if the latest 4-in-1's supposedly have the PCI Latency issues patched in them or not.

One other thing to try, though I don't know what sort of performance implications it actually has, is to turn down the 'hardware acceleration' for audio in the DirectX Diagnostic (C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DXDIAG > Sound tab > Acceleration slider, move to the left one or more notches). This may effect the number of voices or the performance of the system under heavy audio load.

[Beckman]

Thanks for the input. The SB did have it's own IRQ when it was in.

I took it out and am running with the sound from the MB. The lock up issue with the wierd sound has gone away.

I don't know what I loose in that cept some wasted bucks.

Do you know what I loose by taking the SB out in terms of CMBx game play?

[Schrullenhaft]

Was your computer using ACPI ? You can tell by going to the Control Panels > System control panel > Hardware tab > Device Manager button > double-click on the Computer listing and it should tell you what 'configuration protocol' Windows is using. ACPI should force every PCI/AGP device that uses an IRQ to share one IRQ.

The built-in AC97 audio uses up a few more CPU cycles than the SB 512 card probably does (though it's no champ at low CPU-utilization either). There might be a better signal-to-noise ratio with the SB and there may be a better amplifier (the motherboard may not even have an amplifier).

Codec quality may be the biggest difference, but I'm not sure of the differences between the codecs that Creative uses and the one on your motherboard. In general you may not notice a whole lot within CM (depending on how much of an audiophile you are).

[ September 01, 2002, 01:11 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[Beckman]

Was your computer using ACPI ?....

Yes it was, I did what you said to do to check. That seems WAY worse than a normal plug-n-play system. What would a machine be told to do such a thing?

Is that why my modem will go every 25 seconds and stop downloading something and then go full blast, a little pause, and then full blast. As regular as clock-work

I am not into audio that much, but thought it would be nice to support 4 speakers in CMBB.

I can't tell the difference in sound at all, yet.

[Schrullenhaft]

ACPI is the favor configuration/power saving protocol for Windows 2000 & XP. At least that is what Microsoft says. However ACPI has the nasty habit of putting all PCI/AGP devices onto one IRQ with all but Intel P4 systems. If your drivers are written 'properly' this shouldn't be a problem according to Microsoft. However it is a problem for a number of devices. It ends up interrupting many drivers when another device seeks the CPU's attention and this can lead to bad performance, lockups or other problems.

Unfortunately if you've already installed your computer in ACPI mode it isn't simple to change it back. In order for Windows to properly use another configuration protocol you must reinstall Windows. There are no shortcuts around this that work properly.

So if you were using ACPI and you just disabled it in the CMOS/BIOS setup, then Windows hasn't completely gotten rid of using it (or may have other problems).

In the case of your modem, it is a good possibility that the interruptions are caused by sharing an IRQ. Most PCI modems are 'controller-less software' modems that depend heavily on the CPU to do part of the job (where earlier 'hardware' modems didn't require so much assistance in the past). If the modem is being interrupted by another device, then most likely it's going to pause in its downloading/uploading. I don't know how anyone could write a driver that could properly share time with another device(s) when it itself is so dependent on the CPU to function properly.

A PNP configuration system won't guarantee no more problems either, but it will be a bit more possible to get unique IRQs for your devices. However PCI/AGP devices must share a total of 4 IRQs. This means that the video card, sound card (built-in or PCI), USB (which might take two IRQs), modem, network card and any other PCI device must be able to share among them only 4 IRQs. On a Pentium 4 based system there are now more IRQs and possibly less limitations on the number of IRQs available to PCI slots (but I haven't looked at this completely), but I believe that ACPI is a necessity in these systems.

I forgot about the number of channels for the audio. The on-board audio might support more channels, but you won't see them without a riser card (which is almost never available).

[Beckman]

I think all my stuff, vid and sound card, did have different IRQ values.

What is shared is the onboard NIC and the modem.

I am going to try this.

1. Remove modem, and go back to sharing a net connection from wife's PC on my home LAN.

2. Reinstall SB PCI card in slot far away from AGP vid card. Will load the fix to the driver for it.

This MB had 3 PCI, 1 shared with the AGP.

Do you think that will work, I may reintroduce the sound lock up issue.

[Schrullenhaft]

Your major issue at this point is that your modem pauses. I'm not sure how much of a problem it is to share your wife's connection (if she's on a broadband connection it will be much faster).

I suggest only doing one thing at a time here. What is your preferred connection to the Internet, via your modem or whatever connection your wife is on via the LAN ? Interestingly there's no option in the CMOS/BIOS to disable the on-board LAN unfortunately. If you stick with the modem, then you may want to try to disable the on-board LAN if you don't intend to use it (via the Device Manager). If no cable is hooked up to the LAN RJ45 port and the device is disabled, then hopefully it won't interfere with the modem.

If you're satisfied with what you can achieve with the modem (keeping it or removing it), then you might want to tackle the SB 512. However I don't think that you're going to solve the problem easily at this rate. I'm certain that you'll reintroduce the sound problem again. It might be worth the trouble for the rear channel audio (though there's nothing specifically in CM that supports rear channels - they're just the front stereo channels repeated to the rear pair). However I'd guess that you'll have to reinstall your OS from scratch at some point.