I seem to have a conflict

[DaveO]

Hello,

I just installed a Hercules Prophet MXII in place of an AT Xpert98
card and have had mixed success.

The machine is a PIII 450, Gigabyte GA6-BXC motherboard (rev 1.9,
pretty new bios installed not long ago, version F1), Aztech PCI64-Q3D sound card (Trident clone). Win98SE.

On first installation on reboot I Win98 got around to starting the
start up applications and then hung with a continuous tone coming from
the PC speaker.

I cured this by NOT executing the following two lines in the
autoexec.bat file

c:\windows\system\waveinit.exe /A240 /I7 /D1 /L388 /U330 /S
c:\windows\system\wavestr.com

OK so far. Everything reboots and sound in Win98 works, but what are
the above for? Sound in DOS mode?

However I took the "opportunity" of having the case off the PC to remove
a redundant WinModem. This necessitated removing the sound card to
disconnect the lead attaching the modem to the card.

On reinserting the sound card and starting up Win98 "detected new
hardware" and installed drivers. The same version as before. No problem I thought.

But now, I have no sound. The various screens associated with the
card / drivers such as choosing wave table sample are now greyed out.

I also noticed in Device Manager that it is reporting conflicts Under
the sound and video bit.

The list of devices here is MPU-401 compatible, range 0330-0331 IRQ 10
- CONFLICT

PCI Legacy Audio range 0240-024F, 0330-0333, 0388-038B, no conflict

PCIQ64-Q3D IRQ 3, no conflict

Soundblaster Pro Compatible 0220-022F, IRQ 10, DMA 00 - CONFLICT.

So the Soundblaster and MPU-401 are in conflict according to device
manger but since, to my knowledge, I didn't install these devices I am
a bit at a loss as to how this came about.

Perhaps it goes along with the installation of the Aztech drivers. If
so I never had any sound problems before now and therefore never had
reason to look at the sound section of device manager so I don't know
of this conflict has always been there all along but of no
consequence.

Can I just delete these devices from the system to solve the problem?
If so what am I going to be missing?

The MXII has grabbed IRQ 11. I don't know if that has any influence
on the problem.

I suppose I could have damaged the sound card removing it but Win98
seems to think it is working so that leads me to think there is
another problem.

Everything worked with the ATI in place so I am wondering if the MXII
has different IRQ requirements that have led me to this problem or if
it is purely a sound issue?

The only other thing I can think of that I changed is that I set the ECP-EPP option on the parallel port in the BIOS which having read the PC Guide might be causing a problem due to grabbing a DMA??? I notice the Sound Blaster Pro line shows it uses DMA00.

I shall switch that off tonight to see if it solves the problem but I am pretty sure there are other resource conflicts hanging around somewhere.

I did notice the modem (that I removed) also used IRQ 11 (same as the new graphics card) but no conflicts are shown in device manager.

The sound card is on IRQ 3. I thought 5 was more normal. Is this a problem?

Any help on resolving this conflict or any other idea what is wrong
gratefully received.

Dave

------------------
Well it used to work....

[Jerkymom]

Welcome! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

Try starting Windows in Safe Mode, then going to Device Manager and removing all references to sound cards under "Sound, Video and Game Controllers". There may be multiple instances of the drivers listed, so delete them all and restart. Windows should then re-detect your sound card and prompt you for the drivers again. Hopefully this time IRQ and DMA will be assigned correctly and it will install without conflicts.

If that doesn't work, I'm sure others will have more suggestions for you.
Let us know how it goes, and Good Luck!
Kim


Gee, I'm off to a good start this morning...typos already! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif

[This message has been edited by Jerkymom (edited 10-23-2000).]

[Paleo Pete]

Ya beat me to it Kim!!

I'll agree with Kim's advice, that's exactly what I was thinking before reading the second post.

The sound card does usually prefer IRQ 5, as you suspected. IRQ 10 is usually open. I don't find 11 listed either, so I suppose it's usually available. Video cards usually take IRQ 2 or 9, more often 9. IRQ 3 is normally used by COM2,4 and 6.

The MPU-401 is one of the things installed along with your sound card drivers, I think it's related to playing MIDI files. It's always been installed along with almost every sound card I've installed. Yeah right...I take a look in my Control Panel and discover it's not there with my Sound Blaster 16...yeah, I'm still using one of those old things...and it's been working perfect for nearly 6 years!

------------------
If you had everything...Where would you put it?

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[DaveO]

Thanks for the replies. I have solved it in a roundabout sort of way.

I first tried setting the p/port to SCC in the bios. That resolved one of the conflicts.

I then mucked about in device manager and focuse on the MPU-401 "thing". Playing about with a few settings got windows to tell me there was a problem in that this device was not working and would I like it to go and find any none-pnp devices?

So I said yes and lo and behold it said MPU-401 and the Soundbalster Pro didn't exist in my system and removed them.

End of problem - sound is now working.

Interestingly when mucking about with MPU-401 I clicked the set IRQ manaully option and one thing this lets you do is cycle through the available interupts. So its a quick way of checking what you have free.

I didn't set things manually - I let Win98 do that as described above.

The sound is still on IRQ3 but this maybe because I disabled COM2 in the BIOS. There is nothing connected to it so I thought I may as well and so I assume IRQ 3 got grabbed first for the sound card.

The autoexec.bat stuff now also works as well (although I am still not sure what its for).

Thanks for your help once again.

Dave

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Well it used to work....

[Paleo Pete]

As long as it works, that's ok...

When you disable COM2 in BIOS, usually Windows puts the modem on it. For some strange reason, if COM2 is enabled in BIOS, the modem will refuse to work. Many modems now look for COM 4 instead, that may be the reason. Thing is, COM4 uses IRQ 3 also...So I'm wondering, just out of curiosity, where the heck Windows put your modem...

Printer should work set to SCC, but usually will do better set to ECP or EPP. Try putting it back to ECP/EPP, if it causes trouble again it's fairly easy to change. Printer should work better though...

------------------
If you had everything...Where would you put it?

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[DaveO]

The modem is an external one connected to COM1. When I put the graphics card in I removed the internal WinModem as it was no longer in use. I bought the external one so Linux could work. I can't remember what IRQ the internal modem was on.

COM1 IRQ is set in the BIOS to I assume what is the standard IRQ for COM1. I am also now curious, but since I am at work can't check out which one it is using!

I set the printer to SCC because the ECP modes use DMA which was one of the conficts I was having. Now everything has settled down I will try ECP again.

Dave

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Well it used to work....

[Paleo Pete]

Hope it works out...

COM1 is usually set on IRQ 4, I/O Address 3F8-3FF.

------------------
If you had everything...Where would you put it?

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)