Lost CDRW

NascarFool · Post by **NascarFool** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 5:52 pm

I was using the C-Media onboard audio on my Dragon Plus. Well, it sounds good but I was missing my Live card. So I installed the SB Live X-gamer today. I have the latest Liveware from Creative on a CDR. I used the CDRW drive to copy the files to a folder and installed from the folder. After rebooting, no cdrw drive. It's listed in the device manager and it shows in the bios but not in Windows. I don't see any conflicts in the Device Manager either. Help ! All was working fine before installing the SBLive. I don't think that moving the Live card is an option either. The comp will dump a BSOD on me when it tries to load the Dos emulation drivers if the Live card is moved to a different slot or uninstalled and reinstalled. I have no clue why it dumps a BSOD on me when I do that. If all else fails, I guess I'll have to fomat and install fresh. . . again.

Specs:
XP1700+ @ default
Dragon Plus
400 watt PS
2x256megPC2100
Radeon 8500
SB Live X-gamers in PCI slot 4
Onboard Via Lan
Onboard Promis Ultra100
10gig WD ATA66 on IDE3
30gig WD ATA66 on IDE4
Pioneer 16x DVD on IDE1
Yamaha 20x CDRW on IDE2

NascarFool · Post by **NascarFool** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 6:30 pm

I stand corrected, when I move the SB Live to a different slot, the POS locks up tight when attempting to load the SB16 emulation drivers. What a joke.

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 7:55 pm

What OS? Might wanna boot into the good config and disable SB16 Emulation and then try moving it.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 9:03 pm

You probably have a PCI IRQ channel sharing problem (this is NOT the same as an IRQ conflict, there are four PCI IRQ channels labelled A - D and all your PCI and AGP devices must share them)). This problem does not affect ISA cards.

This problem is very common with NICs, some PCI sound cards (the SBLive in particular is VERY prone to it) and SCSI controller cards. These cards do NOT like to share a PCI IRQ channel I explain the problem in detail here with a fix: http://soldcentralfl.com/quakecoop/glfaq5.htm#5_9

If you have an SBLive, try moving it to another free PCI slot.

If you have no free slots available, or none of your free ones work, then make a note of which slot each card is currently installed in right now. Pull ALL your PCI cards except the video card and boot up. Make sure the system is working okay. If the problem consistently happens when playing a game, run that game now and make sure it's okay (most games will run just fine without a sound card installed by-the-way).

If the system seems stable shut down and install ONE CARD AT A TIME. Start with the sound card as that's usually the prime culprit. Make sure that the sound card does NOT share an IRQ with any other device. If it does, or the system acts up, move the card to a different slot until it's resolved.

Repeat this process with all the PCI cards starting with NIC card next if there is one.

Insane Morphius · Post by **Insane Morphius** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 9:39 pm

Had the same problems,

I re-applied the via 4in1's and it cleared it all up

dadx2mj · Post by **dadx2mj** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 9:55 pm

When I got my Dragon I had teh SBLive waiting to be installed. Once I heard the onbaord soudn I said no way. In all honesty I think the onboard is better. I heard things in games that I have never heard with my SBLive. I readily admit that I am no audio expert but with the choice of the two I picked the onboard. If you check out the fourms over at amdmb.com you will see a lot of people have problems installing sound cards on the Dragon. Most have the best luck with PCI slots 4 or 5. Oh and I agree with what was said earlier disable the SB16 emulation. Good Luck

PreDatoR · Post by **PreDatoR** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 10:52 pm

I'll admit the C-media 5.1 soudn on most boards does sound good there are some things about it that drive me nuts.... I can't get the rear channel to play at all... Well it tries to but just don't wanan do it like it should tried all the drivers i can find and done everthing else i can think of... I've got the Iwill XP333 ver2.1 The onboard just don't have the options for fine tuning like the SB Live's do.... I haven't installed my Live yet just been lazy and haven't got around to it... It does sound nice i'll give it that much but when my Logitech Z560's show up and i can't hear the rear channel i'll be pissed!

NascarFool · Post by **NascarFool** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 1:34 am

First the specs:
Windows98SE
Dragon Plus with 2BA2 bios
XP1700+
400 watt PS
Radeon 8500
SB Live X-gamer (tried in PCI3, 4 and 5)
Pioneer DVD on IDE1
Yamaha 20x cdrw on IDE2
10gig WD on IDE3
30gig WD on IDE4

PCI slots 1, 2, 3 and 4 are empty.

The bad point
If I move the SB Live to a different slot, I have to format and reinstall Windows98. Windows locks up tight as a frogs ass. I can go into safe mode and uninstall the Live card drivers and remove all registry entries too. It still locks up on the next reboot. I'm leaning toward a problem with the Promise controller drivers that are causing this problem.