big problem with new mobo

[phonc]

hi folks,
It's been a long while since i've visited this forum.
My setup was working great with a dual core pentium. But now I've upgraded to an Intel Core I5 on an 1155 socket mobo.
The stupid thing won't work. Either it's pci overflow errors or the whole thing just freezes after a minute or 3.
Here's the current setup:

cpu: Intel Core I5 2500K
mobo: Asrock P67 Pro3
card: Creamware Pulsar II (using all i/o's: s/pdif in/out, optical 16 in/out and analog in/out)
OS: Windows XP with SP3
Scope: 4.5
outboard: Creamware A16 Ultra

I'm running Windows XP because of my Steinberg Midex 8 which I want to keep using. I've also got an A16 Ultra hooked up on which I'm running 16 in and 16 channels out. This might be the cause of all my frustrations but it worked properly before.
I'm still allowed to swap my motherboard but this time I'd really like it to work without too many tweaks.

I've searched this forum but didn't find any related topics (that might be my ignorance obviously
Can someone please advise me on which motherboard to purchase?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

It would be greatly appreciated since I've got to get my studio back online sooner than later (never realised how dependant I am of this little piece of plastic and metal).
Cheers,
Remko

[dante]

I'm running Windows XP because of my Steinberg Midex 8 which I want to keep using.

Not neccessarily the case anymore :

http://www.steinberg.net/en/newsandeven ... -1642.html

http://www.steinberg.net/en/support/uns ... dex_8.html

This could change your whole ballgame on O/S and therefore mobo.

[garyb]

i'm not sure how you even got xp to install on that system.

socket 1155 motherboards have very poor pci performance. the pci bus is an afterthought. if you want to run a core i series processor, you should stick to socket 1156 motherboards and processors at the newest. you can probably get your to work if you use win7, disable unused motherboard devices and get the Scope card on it's own irq or at least sharing with only system devices and not USB, and if you turn off all the cpu power stepping in the bios.

new motherboards will need to be setup, there's no avoiding it. it's not hard.

you should disable any of these that your bios offers(or similar):

Intel EIST
Intel C State
C1E Support
Overspeed Protection
Hyperthreading
Execute Bit Support
Set Limit CPUID MaxVal to 3 (maybe not important)
Intel Virtual Tech
Intel VT-d Tech

[phonc]

Dante, that's great! I didn't know they released drivers for Windows 7, but indeed, that changes my OS instantly. But it still leaves me with the IRQ problems.
So Garyb, if I understand correctly, the best way to pursuit would be:

- swap mobo and cpu for 1156 ones
- disable some of the settings you mentioned.
- change irq of my pulsar (is that even possible?)

I forgot to mention that I also use some controllers (launchpad, faderport, bcf2000) and obviously the midex8 through usb so i definitely need some ports available. I can't shut 'em all off.

So which motherboard would be best suited for my needs?

I could try and change settings on my current mobo but i want the system to be superstable this time (i previously had the occasional crash) so i prefer to just get the best modern motherboard possible.

[garyb]

i'd try to get the one you have now going first. a socket 1156 system, would probably be better, but if yours works, why spend extra money?

you don't ever have to disable all the usb controllers, just the one or two that might be sharing an irq with the card. you can't change the slot's irq, you can only disable the device that shares an irq, or move the card to another slot. if you post a screenshot of your irqs, i can probably advise.

first get win7 on that machine. 32 or 64bit doesn't matter. that processor and motherboard probably won't work correctly on xp, so you need win7 to decide if it can work or not. if it's not stable, then you can decide on other hardware. i would expect it to be stable, though. i wouldn't expect great performance as far as the pci bus goes, but that may or may not be a problem, depending on how you use the machine.

i always choose intel motherboards as a first choice, personally. i'm not trying to overclock or play games, i just want it cheap, dependable and stable. there's no need to buy a bunch of features i don't need for audio...

[phonc]

thanx for the quick responses! it's really helping me
I'm installing windows 7 now but I do need good performances from my trusted Pulsar. And by that I mean the lowest latency possible and every i/o (except midi) working at full speed.
So if you're already expecting me to make compromises because of the mobo I'm definitely going to swap it.

What about these boards:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... d%20dh55hc
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... /P7P55_LX/
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... 156/P7H55/

with this processor
Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz 2.5GT/s 8MB Box

New problem: I don't have the 5.0 or 5.1 Scope update and now windows 7 won't recognize my 4.5 driver. Any ideas?

[astroman]

iirc the Asus P55 was mentioned by someone (under technical discussions) as giving really good PCI performance.
Asrock is the budget brand of Asus, I was not able to use a P67 board with Scope 5.1 under Win7/64.
The board performed nice, but had no PCI performance at all - imho GaryB is spot on about the chipset.

I'm suspecting Win7/32 will not deliver the performance you expect. I installed it on an older board (GB 946 gmz or so) which isn't blazingly fast but usable under XP with limited memory (dunno if 2 or 4 GB were installed).
Under Win7/32 performance broke down dramatically in a way you constantly suspected something was hanging.

This is not exactly comparable to the board you mention, but I'd really give it 8GB under Win7 in 64bit then.
The latter requires a pais update, tho...
if you lack the 'new' SC reverbs and some stuff that comes with it, it's worth the price imo

cheers, Tom

[garyb]

you WILL need to disable at least one usb controller, probably.
you WON'T miss it.

the motherboard choice shouldn't affect the midi ports or latency. it'll affect the amount of traffic allowed on the PCI bus.

if you use win7, you MUST use v5.1.
if you want to use a core i processor, you WILL need to use win7.

i would choose the intel board, personally. the asus and asrock boards will probably work great, but there are a ton of uneeded features that won't help.

[fokas]

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... B_WS/#CPUS
Native PCI SUPPORT IS NOT Available on 1155 MBs So up to now the best solution was stepping back ...1156 ... But If you have a C202 -204-206 chipset then you keep your 2500K and put it on the above MB Good luck Danny.

[phonc]

thanks guys.
Asrock is sending my request to Taiwan to see if anything is possible with a bios update or some custom workaround.
But I'll probably swap the whole thing for an 1156 based board and cpu.

btw, running XP on these newer boards is perfectly possible. All the necessary drivers are included and the technical guys at Asrock also confirmed it should be no problem at all. Just to let you all know. It's just that it won't work properly with my Pulsar card. Each of the pci slots is sharing some irq with some other device; one more than the other but still.

[astroman]

I had both an Asus and an Intel board with P67 chipset at the same time and sharing didn't make any difference at all.

On the Intel my Scope card even had it's own IRQ, while on the Asus it was sharing with graphcard, raid-controller and something I forgot about.
The raid thing was the boot device, a RevoDrive X2 PCIe ssd, which is handled as raid by nature.
Not a glitch (I wouldn't have expected that at all...).

But PCI throughput failed between 3rd and 4th instance of Masterverb, which IS completely unusable.
It's really how they deal with the PCI bus...

and as mentioned elsewhere:
don't be confused by PCIe's high performance specs (!)
those are average figures over some period of non-realtime use.
from what I've read (I'm not a hardware guru), it is in fact possible to code audio drivers (aka realtime processing) to those new specs.
But that doesn't come all by itself just because the bus acts like an overclocked 'classic' PCI bus.

cheers, Tom

[fokas]

P67 chipset <http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... ipset.html> has no native pci so this is facilitated thru companies like Asmedia as an add on .Of course this is a Low bandwidth solution BUT intel has Pro Clients that need solid Legacy PCI support thus the C200 series chipsets for Security Systems etc So there are companies like Tyan Supermicro and Asus with such motherboards in Workstation and Server format .<http://forums.servethehome.com/showthre ... read>.This Hopefully shows that PCI is still usefull .
Regards to all
Danny

[garyb]

thanks guys.
Asrock is sending my request to Taiwan to see if anything is possible with a bios update or some custom workaround.
But I'll probably swap the whole thing for an 1156 based board and cpu.

btw, running XP on these newer boards is perfectly possible. All the necessary drivers are included and the technical guys at Asrock also confirmed it should be no problem at all. Just to let you all know. It's just that it won't work properly with my Pulsar card. Each of the pci slots is sharing some irq with some other device; one more than the other but still.

why not post a screenshot of your irqs with the card in the different slots? i can advise then.

naturally, an 1156 with actual pci support or possibly an 1155 with the new chipset will work, but a supermicro mainboard will cost as much as a new 1156 board and a processor to go with it, almost. the difference in performance will be minimal to none.

[spacef]

pci problems can go away immediately with better ram t ....
Had this same problem on P35 and P45 chipsets.
RAM can be a problem, even when they are mentionned in the Motherboard manual.
In my case, I will now stick to Gskill and F... the rest....
I am very happy of my 1366 setup with i7-950, been running smoothly and very powerfully for almost a year now...

[fokas]

Asus P8B WS 1155 C206 Chipset 184 Euro the only minus is one PCI but Imust admit an 1156 or 1366 is the surefire solution
Danny

[garyb]

Intel Desktop Board DH55HC less than $100 including shipping in the USA:
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Socket-Moth ... B0031M9QWC

[fokas]

Sweet deal 3 PCIs !!! Perfect

[nerdvana]

This could change your whole ballgame on O/S and therefore mobo.

As an Midex 8 owner, I'd just like to say thank you Dante, as I was unaware of this, and was about to review my options now I've upgraded to Windows 7 64 bit

[astroman]

pleeeaase, call it a change of direction or something like that
but what's upward with that ???

cheers, Tom
(yes I bought the sh*t)

[dante]

This could change your whole ballgame on O/S and therefore mobo.

As an Midex 8 owner, I'd just like to say thank you Dante, as I was unaware of this, and was about to review my options now I've upgraded to Windows 7 64 bit

Glad to be able to help. I myself did not know until another Scope user emailed and told me, so I posted a note elsewhere on this forum last month but it probably dissapeared off the radar, then I saw this thread and posted it, as I know many Midex8 users have been holding off O/S (and therefore hware) upgrades because of it.