Der Kriegsherr Posted April 6, 2002 Share Posted April 6, 2002 I've updated to Direct X 8.1 and then updated sound card and video drivers. I still get lockups in CMBO. Most commonly, it starts as a sound error: the sound will lock up and echo one moment of sound like an infinite sound loop. Then total lock up of the system and re-boot necessary. My Sound Blaster Live card is sharing IRQ 5 with ACP IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering. How can I switch IRQs? The Standard Floppy Disk Controller has IRQ 6 all to itself. Would it be better if I switched my Sound Blaster over to IRQ 6 and the Floppy Disk Controller to the shared IRQ 5? Please explain how to do this. The lock-ups that I'm experiencing are making me want to quit CMBO, which I don't want to do, because it's the best WWII game out there. Thanks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted April 6, 2002 Share Posted April 6, 2002 You'll never get to share IRQ 6. It's one of those 'dedicated IRQs' that can't be shared with another device. Depending on what items you have enabled in your CMOS/BIOS setup you'll typically only get 4 IRQs that you can share between your PCI and AGP devices, they are 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 & 15 (Pentium 4 motherboards with the 845 & 850 chipsets have twice as many IRQs). IRQs 3 & 4 are used for serial ports COM 2/4 and COM 1/3 respectively. They'll be freed up in these devices are disabled. IRQ 7 is typically assigned to the on-board parallel port (SPP, EPP & ECP). IRQ 12 will be taken by the PS/2 Mouse Port if that is the interface your using for your mouse. Some motherboards may not make this IRQ available even if you're using a Serial or USB mouse. IRQs 14 & 15 are typically set aside for IDE channels 1 & 2 (Primary and Secondary respectively). Again, your motherboard (unless based on a Pentium 4) will only make 4 IRQs available to PCI & AGP devices. So disabling some of the onboard hardware may not make any IRQs free for use. Most motherboards will decide IRQ usage based on which particular PCI slot a device is put in. Particular PCI slots will always share an IRQ with other specific PCI or AGP slots. With ACPI, your motherboard will assign all PCI & AGP devices the same, single IRQ. Under Windows 2000 & XP you have to reinstall (with ACPI disabled in the CMOS/BIOS setup) to get Windows to not use this scheme. Typically ACPI should work fine with most devices, but some drivers (notably the SB Lives) don't seem to like ACPI very much and may have problems. I don't have absolute proof of this, but I have heard a number of people mention the number of problems they've had with ACPI and the Live sound cards. I don't know if any software patches have addressed this or not. Some people don't seem to have that many problems, while others seem to have plenty. Since there's no easy solution for you, then you may want to try disabling the Ambient sound in CMBO by pressing the Shift + S keys. See if this helps with the lockups since the ambient (background) audio is pretty data intensive for sound cards. If this doesn't work then it might come down to reinstalling your OS (depending on what OS you're actually running) and disabling ACPI in your CMOS/BIOS setup beforehand (and many motherboards are incapable of doing this). Beyond that you may need to purchase a different non-Creative sound card. I'm not sure how helpful it may be, but you may also want to try installing any of the chipset-related drivers for your motherboard, especially if your chipset is a non-Intel one (the chipset that is, not the CPU). [ April 06, 2002, 06:33 AM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Kriegsherr Posted April 6, 2002 Author Share Posted April 6, 2002 Schrullenhaft: Thanks for all of the great advice. Many here are very indebted to you, including myself. I have an Athlon AMD 800mhz CPU in a Gateway tower that I bought in July 2000. I don't know the name of the motherboard, but this driver is in my Control Panel "Add/Remover Programs": ALi AGP Driver 1.68. Is this the motherboard driver? I'm running Windows 98SE. I could put the SB Live on IRQ 6 alone and have my Floppy Drive share IRQ 5 with the other device. Is as simple as changing the assignments manually in Device Manager? Or will I have to physically rearrange the cards into new slots? I will try running without ambient sound. This is really frustrating, because I used to be able to run the game with no problem. After I updated the video driver, the problem started. Now that I've properly updated the video driver, I still have problems. Thanks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaka Posted April 6, 2002 Share Posted April 6, 2002 Originally posted by Der Kriegsherr: ... My Sound Blaster Live card is sharing IRQ 5 with ACP IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering...That isn’t a problem, ACP IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering is meant to be together with any PCI device you may have… Possible actions: -If your Motherboard has a built in sound card or was primarily design with one (wish means yours may not have a Soundcard on it but the architecture is there) then you must go to the BIOS and disable it… -If you have an ASUS motherboard make sure you have the latest 4 in 1 (or 3 in 1 wish ever applies to yours) board drivers… -Try change the buffer of your sound card (in Audio HQ) -Disable any memory resident programs wish may be “sharing” your sound card. -Use DXdiag to check for any possible conflicts with your Sound/Video cards… follow its instructions -Make sure your OpenGL (and DX as you are on it) settings are ok… the standard setup whish comes from Micro$soft is no good (since you fresh installed DX 81…maybe you forgot this) Can’t think of any thing else right now… hope it helps 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaka Posted April 6, 2002 Share Posted April 6, 2002 Originally posted by Der Kriegsherr: ... I don't know the name of the motherboard, but this driver is in my Control Panel "Add/Remover Programs": ALi AGP Driver 1.68. Is this the motherboard driver? ... kind of... that is the AGP port dirver, by the way there is a least a 1.72 version avileble. You have an ALI chipset... never used one, but there is a posibility that your board is an ASUS. ...but anyway, it seams you don't have a VIA or AMD chipset, so for now forget the 4 in 1 drivers. ...but the idea remains, update your motherboard drivers 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaka Posted April 6, 2002 Share Posted April 6, 2002 You can see your Motherboard in any of these ways: 1) Open computer and see 2) (wish I advice) When your computer powers up, when it is on the 1st Black with white letters screen, on the line immediately above your CPU name and speed (AMD 800 MHz)...the first 2 words are the MB manufacturer and model. Use it to do a search for the latest drivers on the INET... Before download check 1st if it is the Motherboard manufacturer official site in order to make sure they are the latest. [ April 06, 2002, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: Tanaka ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted April 6, 2002 Share Posted April 6, 2002 I forgot about the ACP IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering and what Tanaka said about it is true. I assumed that this was for ACPI which will typically force all PCI/AGP devices to one IRQ, however this may not be happening with your system. Having one of these 'IRQ Holders' associated with each PCI/AGP device is normal (although the initial acronym varies sometimes). Do you know the exact Gateway model that you have ? The Acer Labs (ALI) website in Taiwan has you identify the chipset before downloading drivers (for northbridge and southbridge). I'm not sure if Gateway will have an updated version of these drivers or not. If you follow Tanaka's advice you may be able to determine the ALI chipset model (there are newer drivers, but I have no idea if they'll help with your problem or not). Gateway's support should also have a BIOS update (if there is one) for your motherboard which may be applicable too. The Acer Labs (ALI) website will have the latest driver (Click Support on the top bar and then Drivers in the left hand column). Most of the differences that chipset drivers provide are for AGP compatibility or features. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Kriegsherr Posted April 7, 2002 Author Share Posted April 7, 2002 "Do you know the exact Gateway model that you have ? The Acer Labs (ALI) website in Taiwan has you identify the chipset before downloading drivers (for northbridge and southbridge). I'm not sure if Gateway will have an updated version of these drivers or not. If you follow Tanaka's advice you may be able to determine the ALI chipset model (there are newer drivers, but I have no idea if they'll help with your problem or not)." Gateway's support should also have a BIOS update (if there is one) for your motherboard which may be applicable too. The Acer Labs (ALI) website will have the latest driver (Click Support on the top bar and then Drivers in the left hand column). Most of the differences that chipset drivers provide are for AGP compatibility" Thanks for all of the help. My exact Gateway model is Gateway Select 800 Mid-Tower Case with an AMD Athlon 800Mhz CPU with Performance Enhancing Cache Memory. I certainly would like to update the Chipset and Motherboard drivers, if I could find the correct ones to install and how to install. Should the old drivers be uninstalled first for Chipset? Motherboard? How about Sound Card? I already know that Nvidia recommends uninstallation of Video Card drivers before re-installation of new drivers. I was able to accomplish that correctly, so I think that I have the latest video card driver installed. Thanks again. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted April 7, 2002 Share Posted April 7, 2002 It seems as if Gateway support has fixated on serial numbers to identify products (no browsing by model type any more). You would either have to look at the back of your case for Gateway's sticker which would have the serial number printed on it or your original invoice which may show the serial number. To identify the chipset (though this may not completely work) you can go to Start Menu > Settings > Control Panel > System control panel > Device Manager tab > double-click on System Devices. In here will be listed all sorts of drivers for the chipset. Sometimes the exact model number of the chipset won't be here, but it might be possible to determine which chipset it is by the component drivers (which may be listed as older versions, since that is what Windows may identify them as). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Kriegsherr Posted April 7, 2002 Author Share Posted April 7, 2002 Thanks. I've sent an email to Gateway tech support with my computer serial number to request my computer part model numbers from them. They included no such technical info with the computer. The Device Manager has a method to update drivers, but it does not list part numbers. The "method", by the way, appears to simply want to search my Systems Op CD that came with the computer when I got it in July, 2000. Even with Ambient sounds turned off, still get lockups. Terribly frustrating. Have not yet tried to play with "no sound"? What's really frustrating is that when I first got the game, I had no problems. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Kriegsherr Posted April 8, 2002 Author Share Posted April 8, 2002 Schrullenhaft: I have a GeForce 2GTS 64meg video card with the latest drivers. Do you suppose I should try loading earlier drivers, say the 14.70 ones? Maybe it's the new video card driver causing the lockups. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted April 8, 2002 Share Posted April 8, 2002 Some earlier NVidia Detonator drivers will have problems with FSAA. I can't remember off-hand which version completely fixed the problem for Win9x/ME. I wouldn't necessarily guess that the latest drivers are the cause of your lockups. Was there a point where you weren't having lockups or have you always had lockup problems with CM ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Der Kriegsherr Posted April 9, 2002 Author Share Posted April 9, 2002 There was a time when CMBO ran just fine!! It was only after I updated my sound and video card drivers that the trouble started. I think that I've successfully re-installed the original SB Live driver, but I have not done so with my video card driver. Maybe I should try uninstalling the new video card driver and trying the 14.70 driver? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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