Sound problems in winXP

[UtwigMU]

Do you happen to have VIA southbridge Motherboard?

My friend has problems with his KG7 (AMD northbridge, VIA soutbridge) and SB128PCI.

[rubank]

Yes, I have the Via KT266A chipset, but it causes no problem in 98se so why in XP?
Different drivers, yes, but still?
Zokes, the older soundcards uses Ensoniqs 1370 or 1371 chips and Creative makes no XP drivers for those, only for win9x and NT4. I have the ES 1370 variant, so in XP I also have the generic drivers. (Ensoniq chips rulez

rubank

[ZokesPro]

Almost same config here rubank, I'm using KT133A chipset. And the ES1370 sounds about right for my card.

Ensoniq chips do rule!

[UtwigMU]

Because the 98 had native decent drivers for SB128 PCI.

I talked this over extensively in Arstechnica (I cannot find the thread atm)

There are no drivers that make problems go away in Win2k. Lattest drivers from Creative and 4in1's do make it easier.

However the only way to remedy this is to replace soundcard.

I recommend Hercules Fortissimo, Digifire or GameTheatreXP.

[UtwigMU]

Via southbridge (KG7 RAID) - SB 128 woes (H@ please have a look)

Here's my thread in CPU Motherboard technologia on Arstechnica.

Originally posted by Hat Monster:
Your problem:
In Windows2000 and XP, the SBPCI128 (and I have one) is reduced to a codec. Not only that, but absolutely no hardware features of the Ensoniq 1371 chip are available. Not even hardware MIDI.

I had a performance nightmare with mine and a cheap ISA card (Avance ALS120) blew it clean out of the water.

Replace the sound card as a matter of urgency. Make "urgent" read "absolutely right damn now" if the model is CT4700. The 4700 is the more capable of the two PCI 128s, but also works the worst with the stupid codec drivers. The CT4750 is a less capable card, but tends to get along better. Neither are what you'd like to use for any length of time.

The SB PCI 128 is what turned me against Creative and, in the AWE days, I was quite a Creative fanboy.

H@

[UtwigMU]

Also read BIOS Arcana: description and translation

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.

CPU to PCI Write Buffer

Options: Enable, Disable
When the CPU comes to write to the PCI bus, it either does so through this buffer or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it has to contend with anything else that's using the PCI bus because it has to write directly to the bus. If it has this buffer, the CPU can write a quadword then get on with better things. Enable it for better performance, but it may cause instability on systems running a Sound Blaster Live on a VIA chipset, and I can't rightly isolate why.
Fast Writes

PCI Delay Transaction/PCI 2.1 Compatible/PCI 2.1 Compliance

Options: Enable, Disable
PCI 2.1 specification mandates that this is *always* to be enabled. Strangely enough, it's disabled by default on far too many boards. This causes an ISA device--and you do still have some, even without ISA slots or cards, since the SuperIO chip does a lot of things on the ISA bus--to be told to wait if the PCI bus is in use. It's very much like Passive Release in the regard that it's a buffer between fast PCI and slow ISA.

ISA devices now use the PCI bus, with the PCI-ISA bridge translating the data. Since the ISA bus is so slow, telling them to wait is the best idea and it's not going to cause any delay to ISA transactions since PCI is so much faster.

HOWEVER, our good friend, the Sound Blaster Live, deserves special attention. The Live appears to not query the arbiter as to the status of "bus parking," and it is hypothesized that it incorrectly assumes a "last device" schema is in use, which is the default in most chipsets. For performance reasons, VIA always parks the bus on the arbiter, which results in faster switching between devices but higher latency for any single device. This option, if enabled, can cause SB Live cards to cause crashes on VIA chipset boards and performance penalties (including high sound latency) on Intel chipset boards. A VIA chipset always parks the bus on the arbiter, as previously mentioned, while an Intel chipset (440BX or better) will park it on the last device to have used it most of the time. Other cards, such as the Aureal Vortex2, can also be affected by this, but Aureal patched this up in later driver releases. It's only a real problem in the 32-bit environment of Windows 2000 and Windows XP with ACPI in use. When older methods of assigning IRQs are in use, the cards signal to the arbiter in a different way, bypassing this problem.

[rubank]

I´ve tried fiddling with the bios, but it doesn´t work.
Thanks for responding though UtwigMU.

It seems I´ll have to get a new card. Eventually.

rubank

[UtwigMU]

I also fiddled with BIOS on that KG7 RAID.

There was no difference.

Installing lattest 4in1's and lattest creative drivers made the following difference:

Before: Long (3-5seconds) skips during games, watching movies or MP3's.

After Short, faster (0.5-1seconds) skips during games, DivX or MP3's

[ZokesPro]

Tried it this morning, records stereo.

[rubank]

Thanks Zoke,
good to know.


I still wonder what´s wrong in my machine, but I´ll give it a rest now. I can always record in 98SE, it´s just annoying to have to reboot every time.

rubank

[Maggi]

are you positive that the fairly small 3.5mm plug is fully inserted ???

usually, if it's not all the way in, it might bridge both stereo channels an give you mono instead ...

or you might have a short in the cable/plugs ...

Just a few thoughts,
Maggi

[ZokesPro]

Maggi has got a point, also what color is the connector your using on the card? You might has plugged it in the "MIC" connector. (if all else fails start from the beginning)

[rubank]

Maggi dear

I can assure you I know how to insert the "plug"

Seriously, it DOES work in 98SE, just not in XP.

rubank

[Maggi]

oh well ... would have been too easy.