G400 + SBLIVE LOCKUPS

[TDI]

Howdie.

I´m still having some frequent lockups when playing Expendable. I´ve already reduced the hardware-acceleration for my SBLIVE, just to keep the bus-mastering of the G400 active. Without it, I can´t run Expendable, Q3 or any other game at higher resolutions. The lockups only occured while playing Exp., and after decreasing the hardware-acceleration, the went away... at least I thought so.
After playing Q2 for a while, I had another lockup. They all "sound" the same. The screen freezes, and there´s a really annoying buzzing sound coming out of my speakers. Thus decreasing the hardware-acceleration didn´t fix the problem. Can anybody help me?
The only special thing about my system is the FSB@112 MHz. The G400 isn´t overclocked anymore, but that doesn´t seem to be the problem.
CAN I disable the busmastering of the SBLIVE (without throwing it out of my window)?

My systemspecs look like this:
Asus P2B BIOS 1.010
P-II 350@392 MHz
160 MB Ram
2 Quantum UDMA IDE HDs
1 Toshiba 36x IDE
1 Mitsubishi Writer IDE
G400 32MB DH IRQ 11
1 network-adapter PCI (all fine) IRQ 3
1 scanner-adapter ISA (all fine)
1 SBLIVE Value IRQ 10

USB and SB16 support are both diabled.

OS=Win98 SE
I´m using the latest available drivers.

The USCW in the BIOS is set to 256 MB.

Help help help?
S.O.S.
These lockups _sometimes_ occured while I was browsing the web, so the "sound" wasn´t active, and the lockup looked the same, only that there was no buzzing sound.

Before I had my G400, I had a Viper 330 along with a Monter II 12MB.
I didn´t have the problem then.

Does s.o. have the same problem???
-Can somebody tell me, if it´s the fault of the SBLIVE, or the G400?

First I thought, that it was the fault of Expendable, since the lockups _nearly_ went away, when I disabled the EAX-support. But then the lockups also appeared with the simple 2-D sound support.

Ok, enough.
I think you all got the point.
Please give me advice.

Thx in regards,...

TDI

[Grego]

I have had no problems at all with my g400 and SBLive retail not when playing games, dvd or expendable. I suggest that you try lowering your busspeed to 100, that might do the trick, since you have forced your cards to run at higher speed (at least thats what I think ).

[Kronos]

I had a lot of trouble with the SB Live card on my IWILL BS100 motherboard, in fact, every time I installed the drivers, the machine reset itself. I solved the problem by upgrading the bios on my motherboard. You may have already done this, but if not, it could be worth a try. Also you might try moving the SB live into another PCI slot, on my motherboard, certain cards refuse to function properally in certain slots. Hope this helps a bit.

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Sometimes, just sometimes, the things I say make sense!

[Ron]

TD1
What version of the SBLive! drivers are you using?. I found problems until I upgraded to the 2.1 driver.

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BX6r2, 128MB PC100, C366A@550, Pan DVDwHollywood+,Pan 4X SCSI CDR, WangDAT, Quantam UDMA HDs, Fireport 40 UW, SBLive!Value (attached to bi-amped TEAC/Hitachi multimedia system), SMC Intel 21041 NIC, etc. G200 Mystique as well.

[dwright]

When I first installed my g400max, I had a lockup problem with opengl games. First get the g400 and the sblive on their own irqs. I have irq5 for the g400 and irq12 for the sblive (neither is shared with any other device just steering). Next I unistalled sblive drivers and reinstalled creative 2.0 then 2.1. I also disable sb 16 emulation. Without reinstalling the creative drivers it still locked-up (just moving the card did not do the trick). With everything working I reinstalled win98se on another HD. This worked well and cleaned up all the old drivers. I saved the original HD just in case the reinstall didn't work but I haven't needed to use it.

[Rags]

Having your G400 on IRQ5 is a no-no. You should be setting it on IRQ9 or higher.

Rags



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FedEx Sucks!

[dwright]

Thanks Rags. I forced the bios to irq9 for the g400max. I had to install win98se again this afternoon. The reason this time, I installed the new ms optical mouse explorer(usb) and intellipoint 3.0. Opengl locked-up again and nothing fixed it. The new mouse is running now but, without the intellipoint software that came with it. So far all is well. There has got to be a file that gets updated and then the G400 locks up.

[TDI]

Howdie again.

Thx for all the hints, but I´ve allready tried all of them. My BIOS is up to date, the SBLIVE uses the 2.1 drivers, etc...
bla bla bla.
I even put my FSB back to 100 MHz, and guess what: My damn explorer started to post those nice little errors we all love...
I havent´t had a lockup caused by my SBLIVE / G400 combo, but that doesn´t mean a thing, coz I haven´t played that much since then.
The next funny thing is (btw: totally offtopic , that I can´t fill any textfields on a webpage, when I use the IE5.0 as a browser. Yeah, I know, I´m running out of luck. Girl´s gone, system locks up, IE5.0 stinks, and the TurboGL will just work with a P-III and probably with a Athlon.
So I´m going to get me a P-III as soon as I sold my P-II
Back to the topic.
When there´ll be no more lockups coz of the slower FBS I´ll post another message to inform all those, who are interested in overclocking their FSB. I think that it´s only a G400 problem. But we´ll see about that.
Thx again.

[Skynet8]

http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/004628.html

The SBLive/G400 combo seems to cause some people problems, while others don't have any problems running it. Weird. I have a GenuineIntel mobo and latest drivers for both g400 and sblive, trying every combination of reg tweaks, old drivers, new drivers, irqs, everything I could think of. Nothing worked, except disabling bus mastering which really sucks. So, I'm stuck using my old AWE64 now... SIGH. I really hope either Matrox or Creative does something about it, so that a lot of pple would be much happier.

[TDI]

Well, all I can say is that I still had no time to play Expendable or any other game long enough in order to say that the problem´s really gone (with the FSB back at 100MHz).
Damn work
But I solved the problem with the IE5.0 !
-there was a *.dll missing.

Till then,...
TDI

[TDI]

It´s me again.
...the lockups won´t leave me alone
At least the game just crashes back to the setup instead of freezing the whole system.
So I have no idea left...

Hints?

Greetings,...
TDI

[TDI]

hmmpf..
I mean it just crashes back to the desktop... not to the setup...
We´re kinda weird sometimes. ya´know?

[Sprocket]

I have a G400 32Mb DH on an Abit BX6 R2 with no problems. I have G400 busmastering on and 32bit on, and I also use the SBLive! 2.1 drivers with full hardware acceleration: not a single problem. It's all in the setup of the system though. FIsrt do whatever you have to to get the G400 in IRQ 10 or 11, it needs to be there! Then keep any cards out of the PCI slot directly below the AGP slot. IF you have a NIC or internal modem put it into the 2nd PCI slot, then put the SBLive! into the 4th slot, so as to keep space between each card. Force all cards into IRQ's through BIOS! The SBLive is a stubborn mofo of a card, but is the best sounding so here it goes: it has to be assigned to IRQ 5. period. Put your NIC or internal modem at IRQ- well any that is not being used by video or IDE controller or USB (serial its called in BIOS PCI device listing) and TURN OFF ACPM IN BIOS!!! YOU DONT EVER EVER NEED IT, but so many people leave it on, your sys can shut down hdd's without it and do all that stuff: all you need is an ATX mobo and you instantly have it. never ever turn ACPM on, it only eats an IRQ! Once that is all straightened out, yank everything but the G400- now install win98. load the G400 drivers(cd), reboot, then install your NIC or internal modem reboot, then install the SBLive last after any other card (VIDEO is always numero uno!) this is a must! Now load all your apps, updated video drivers, etc. load LiveWare 2.1 etc. (if you loaded sound cd drivers first) then everything should run fine. (oops- then plug in four surrond speakers and two 50W subs and enjoy the power and clarity) Oh yeah- keep your FSB down!, sound cards are very finicky and dont like being clocked up! I run my sys at 75MHz FSB and that is the limit of the SBLive (going to 83 kills it, ive tested my sys with/without soundcard for stability, and my chip can do 83FSB!) so keep that in mind. Follow these instructions and IRQ assignment to the dot and everything will work 100%.

[dwright]

Hi Sprocket,
Thanks for the tips. I have assigned irq's manually to sblive=5 and G400max=10 (both are not shared). Right now I don't have lockups.
Does anyone know why my only lockups are in opengl right on entry to the actual game (after the entry menu)? The only out for the lockup is to hit reset. When lockups happen I have to change something (reinstall drivers, change irq's, reinstall win98se as a last resort, or sometimes just graphic options in the opengl game) then it works for a while until I add something new (like the ms explorer mouse). If if don't change something after a lockup - it locks up forever. In quake3 test if I change the opengl extensions to off I seem to have less of a problem and it sometimes is enough to stop the lockup. Are opengl extensions a problem for the G400?
I have never had alock-up with directx games.
I am starting to wonder if these lockups have something to do with the Abit bh6 + G400 = lockup reported in another post.

I will keep testing and look here for futher reports.
Thanks

[dwright]

My most recent testing confirms:
Q3test opengl extensions = on = lockup (hit reset)
Q3test opengl extensions = off = no lockup

I have run with opengl extensions on in the past without a lockup. This seem to triger the lockup right now 100% of the time.