the audio problems continue

[Speed4Ever]

No, leave the floppy slot alone.

Sorry, now I am being dense. Yes, I have a PCI IDE/SCSI Hard drive controlller. I found this link:

http://www.bluelifeaudio.com/~pccon.../resove_irq.htm

Is this useful? I tried to do it but it is tailored for 98/ME.
And my soundcard is on the HCL. It's a CS4281. I put it in yesterday to see if it was simply the SBLive 5.1 MP3 card that was the problem but the same problem is there, so I am glad I didn't spend 90 bucks on the SBLive card for nothing.

Here is where I assumed you had your HD(s) hooked in to the PCI IDE controller. Was this right? Then you hooked them up to the two Motherboard IDE slots where they are now. I need to know if this is how things went, just so that we arent misunderstanding eachother.
Is *anything* hooked into the PCI IDE controller. Just to specify what I mean, a PCI IDE controller is a card that hooks into a free PCI slot, and is used to hook up extra HDs, CD-ROMS, etc.
When I mention the PCI IDE controller, I am *NOT* referring to the IDE slots on the motherboard. Those are a totally separate issue.
I'm just making sure we're on the same track here. I'm hoping theres no confusion in terminalogy between us, but if there is, I need to know.

Thanks.

 

[georgejr]

OK I think I am getting things a bit clearer now.....I have always had my hard drive, and D and E drives, hooked into the motherboard IDE slots. Nowhere else. I don't have a card for extra drives....when I access my extra dive I unhook my E drive and use it there. I don't any extra slots besides the two IDE slots. My soundcard is installed at the rear of the computer. I have tried it in both slots, switching it with my dial up modem, which I leave in for faxing. I am sorry if this is just confusing the hell out of you.....

 

[Speed4Ever]

Originally posted by georgejr
OK I think I am getting things a bit clearer now.....I have always had my hard drive, and D and E drives, hooked into the motherboard IDE slots. Nowhere else. I don't have a card for extra drives....when I access my extra dive I unhook my E drive and use it there. I don't any extra slots besides the two IDE slots. My soundcard is installed at the rear of the computer. I have tried it in both slots, switching it with my dial up modem, which I leave in for faxing. I am sorry if this is just confusing the hell out of you.....

This solves alot for me, but also raises more questions .

Sorry if I messed up our terminolgy. I should have been more clear on what I meant, I sometimes need to be reminded that some people dont have the faintest idea what I'm talking about . I apologize.

I also cant figure out for the life of me what the hell is interfering with your sound card, much less both sound cards you've tried.
Sharing an IRQ *shouldnt* interfere with the soundcard one bit AFAIK.

I'm going to try one last thing. Look in your sound properties (sound icon in the system tray at the lower right hand side of the desktop). When the properties are shown, lower all the sound levels down below the halfway point.

Then try playing something in media player and see if that helps.

 

[georgejr]

I have tried the "audio at less than half" idea and it had no effect. I know a lot of people had, and have, this problem so there is definitely something going on that isn't just due to my ineptness. I wonder if it is an XP thing, because it started shortly after I installed....but not immediately. And if it is an IRQ conflict, how do I change that?

 

[Speed4Ever]

Do you have an intregrated soundcard built into the motherboard also?

The reason I dont think that this is necessarily a IRQ problem is because I have noticed that most of these problems occur on AMD systems, while Pentiums seem to have a better time with them. Changing IRQs manually can be a gruesome task if you dont know what your doing, and can create more problems. I'm not sure I could lead you through that, and I'm of two minds as ti whether that would solve it anyway. Its also difficult because I'm not really

Sorry this is taking so long, but theres a lot of troubleshooting involved in this kind of thing, and I'm running out of ideas, but I may have a few more tricks to perform here.

I know this is frustrating, I've been there. I'm trying to research your soundcard a bit more, but info is lacking. I'm working on it.

Also, can you give me your emachine model #? That might help me too.

 

[georgejr]

My model number is Etower 400 I3
There is a black square at the back of the computer that says CS4280, so I assume it is the built in soundcard, although in my audio properties everything is using the CS4281 which I installed ages ago by myself. I have checked it out and the CS4281 is on the HCL. I have never had any trouble with audio before....I recently took out my SBLive 5.1 Mp3 card to see if it was the culprit but it obviously wasn't. So when I get this thing figured out I will re-install it, but for now, I am stucking with my CS4281. I have searched for XP drivers for it to be sure its totally updated but I haven't found anything.

 

[Speed4Ever]

Also, try lowering your soundcards hardware acceleration down one notch at a time until the problem is gone. This isnt the greatest thing, but it should work until we figure this out.

To do this, go to control panel > sounds and audio devices > volume > advanced >performance > hardware acceleration slider bar. Toss it one notch to the left, then test. Continue to do this until the problem is gone.

 

[Speed4Ever]

Ok, I just looked up your specs, and your machine indeed does come with a Crystal CS4280 3D PCI Audio. I'm not sure if its intefrated or not. What sound card did you take out when you put in your current one?

 

[georgejr]

Originally, I replaced the built in card with the CS4281. A few months ago I replaced that card with the SBLive MP3 5.1 card. A few weeks after, Windows XP was installed. All was OK for a few days and then the audio problems began. System Restore solved whatever the problem was once or twice and then was useless as the problem remained no matter what I did.

I have turned down the audio acceleration down to Basic and it seems to have helped. I get a little distortion here and there (nothing like it was, that's for certain) but Outlook Express and Windows Media Player open faster and do not cause the audio problems now. The problem remains with Standard and Full acceleration. What effect does hardware acceleration have on sound quality? To be honest, right now I don't particularly care but does it really make any difference?

If this is as far as I can get, I truly appreciate all your help! Thanks for being patient.

 

[Speed4Ever]

Hardware Acceleration will basically allow your sound processes to be offloaded more onto the Sound card, instead of the CPU. Taking off acceleration is almost like a "software" mode that will force your CPU to work harder. Games, etc, may seem slower, but problems are usuallu reduced. I think this is the way it goes

So am I to assume that the 4280 was a PCI card that you took out, and not built-in to the motherboard itself?

 

[georgejr]

Yes, there was a card in there when I replaced it.

 

[Speed4Ever]

Ok, so at least I know that we're not dealing with another built-in soundcard thats conflicting with the one you put in.

Dude, I'm out of answers right at the moment. I'm not sure whether this is a problem with overall compatibility between your Emachine and XP, or the EM and your souncard. Possibly a combination. Your Emachine sounds to be borderline compatible with XP. Its pretty old, and the older the computer, the more chances of there being problems with XP. XP was designed with newer computers in mind.

What was your last OS? Have you ever ran Windows 2000? If so, were there problems with that?

This could also be a problem whereas your bios may be too old to be completely compatible with XP, which may be causing the problem.

I'm willing to pursue this if you want, if turning off acceleration isnt to your liking. But I cant promise results at this point. Thats up to you.

Later.

 

[vizionblind]

I am having the same problems here except i have a custom built machine.

p3 800

abit bx-133 raid mb

512 ram

3com nic

sb audigy

windows xp

ibm 46gb deskstar on ata 100 slot

here are my conflicts in administrative tools even viewer system: tell me if something is up.


error hpt3xxnt

error acpi

error acpi

error dcom


also in device manager under view resources by connection:

irq 10 is shared by my geforce 3 and ohci compliant ieee1394 host controller. it's listed as pci my geforce 3, why? it's on agp.

also

IRQ 11 is shared by 3com nic and hpt370 udma/ata100raid controller

also

irq 12 is shared by sb audigy and intel 82371ab/eb pci to usb universal host controller.



i get the winamp studder effects , popping etc.. I have tried all your other suggestions thus far...

Also, every once in awhile my mouse will studder when moving around the desktop, and especially at bootup.

I do not have alot loaded in the taskbar, except rundll32, em_exec, taskswitch, fast and aim. Everything else is disabled.

 

[Speed4Ever]

Originally posted by vizionblind
I am having the same problems here except i have a custom built machine.

p3 800

abit bx-133 raid mb

512 ram

3com nic

sb audigy

windows xp

ibm 46gb deskstar on ata 100 slot

here are my conflicts in administrative tools even viewer system: tell me if something is up.


error hpt3xxnt

error acpi

error acpi

error dcom

ok, can you give me the text that were in the errors?

The HPT one could mean a problem with the Highpoint driver, which has had problems with XP in the past. Do you have the latest drivers?

I need the ACPI amd DCOM text to figure those out.

also in device manager under view resources by connection:

irq 10 is shared by my geforce 3 and ohci compliant ieee1394 host controller. it's listed as pci my geforce 3, why? it's on agp.

This may be by design, might not be. Is this a VIA-based board? I'm not sure, as I cant access the abit site at the moment for soem reason. If its VIA-based, you might want to check out the latest 4-1 drivers. If not, see if the manufacturer has updated AGP-miniport drivers or something.

You might want to move the Audigy to another slot, as I believe the IEEE1394 controller is related to the Audigy. This might remove that sharing. Dont put anything in the slot right below the AGP slot, as these two slots are usually shared.

also

IRQ 11 is shared by 3com nic and hpt370 udma/ata100raid controller

Is the NIC built-in to the motherboard? If not, try moving the NIC to a different slot.

also

irq 12 is shared by sb audigy and intel 82371ab/eb pci to usb universal host controller.

This shouldn't be any big deal. This is actually typical. I share my Audigy with the USB controller, with no ill-effects.

i get the winamp studder effects , popping etc.. I have tried all your other suggestions thus far...

Also, every once in awhile my mouse will studder when moving around the desktop, and especially at bootup.

I do not have alot loaded in the taskbar, except rundll32, em_exec, taskswitch, fast and aim. Everything else is disabled.

Try out my suggestions, and get post back.

Also, it may be wiser to post a new thread in the forum in the future, instead of posting a new problem in an existing thread. That way more people can see the problem and provide advice which could be crucial to solving the problem. While I know quite a bit about computers, I'm far from being a know-it-all.

Strength in numbers...

 

[vizionblind]

Thanks for the reply


Ok for the highpoint here's the error message:

The device, \Device\Scsi\Hpt3xxNT1, did not respond within the timeout period.


For the 2 acpi errors here are the messages:

AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to read from an illegal IO port address (0x71), which lies in the 0x70 - 0x71 protected address range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance

For the DCOM error, here's the message:

DCOM got error "The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. " attempting to start the service ImapiService with arguments "-Service" in order to run the server:

and the dcom had a bunch of numbers following it...

Also, here's a good link to my motherboard.

http://www.topmic.com/Products/MotherBoards/abitbx133raid.htm


I have an intel p3 800, so VIA i doubt it, and agp miniport, doesn't that only work with AMD chipsets and boards?

 

[Speed4Ever]

Ok,

The HPT error could mean that the HD didnt respond in time, possibly due to slow access time. It could also mean that the HPT370 driver needs to be updated.
I've heard many people complain about the HPT370 controllers and XP. I'm not yet sure if Highpoint has released final drivers for XP or not.

The ACPI error could be a result of the HPT370 screwing up (see above). It could also mean that the Bios isnt up to date. Do you have the latest Bios?

The DCOM error "ImapiService" probably means there may be a problem with your CD-ROM working with Imapi. This also could be related to the HPT370.

Can you correlate what you were doing at the time of the errors? Are all the errors bunched together (IOW, are they related to the same error at the same time)?

Sorry if I'm a little dense on the BX. I'm a Athlon fan myself, so I dont get around many Pentium boards. How long have you had this board?

 

[vizionblind]

I have had this board since release. yes, those files are bunched together all ni a row. I have not ever updated the BIOS since I got the board

 

[Speed4Ever]

Ok, dumb question on my part...*When* was the board released?

Also, I would recommend updating the bios. <WARNING> If your not absolutely sure how to update the bios, take the computer to a local shop and have them do it. Should be relatively cheap to do. Updating the bios in the wrong manner could render the computer absolutely unusable.

I'm also fairly certain that the HPT 370 is causing the errors. Again, see if theres an updated driver for the controller.

Other than that, I cant offer much more than that.

Hope this helps.

 

[vizionblind]

I have updated the HPT with abits driver. still no go..

 

[Speed4Ever]

You need to update the HPT bios to the same version also.

Did you do this? Same warning as above applies, except that the Highpoint might become useless (same thing I guess )