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Someone said I don't contribute anything so here is my major contribution:

Some time ago I built a new powerful computer with an ASUS motherboard. Cubase was bombing way too often. Later I noticed that the computer wasn't seeing my CD writer and copying large files was bombing my computer.

I suspected I had an IRQ problem because of my experience with computers but even though I set the IRQ in the BIOS, Windows XP would ignore these settings. It says in the Creamware book if you have more than one CW card then put them on the same IRQ. This also frees an IRQ or 2. After an hour search I found easy instructions on how to remove ACPI from Windows XP. If you try this have all your drivers handy because Windows will ask for them again. Disable any onboard crap you don't need such as the built in audio (my asus has this). This will free another IRQ. You can do this in the device manager (which is also where you can change the IRQ settings if you need to after you remove ACPI). After all this I am *Finally* able to use my new computer:

On Windows XP, all you have to do is go into Device Manager, right click on "ACPI Computer", and use the "Update Driver..." button to replace the driver with "Standard PC". Unlike Windows 2000, this will NOT cause your machine to die a miserable death upon reboot. Instead, XP is smart enough to rebuild the HAL registry tree by reinstalling all your devices after you reboot. Pretty simple, eh?

(smilie with braincells)
_________________
Let There Be Music!


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-05-13 19:34 ]</font>

so I was wondering.. can I switch back and forth between ACPI Multiprocessor and Standard Uniprocessor anytime I want without any consequences? I remembered reading that it could cause some system instability.. I don't remember if I experimented with it, but does anyone know for sure?

I'd recommend different hardware profiles tied to different logins (so that the login supports the drivers & apps used for that hardware configuration.)

I've been doing this since nt 3.51 (even tho almost nothing ran on nt until win2k gained widespread support) and it helped me a lot since my 'other' install/config would often be geared towards doing 3d & video. I personally don't find it necessary anymore but this may just be the speed of modern systems and my laziness

Kensuguro:

I use Drive Image. It has never failed me.

I thought my problem was fixed but I still had a few things to do. On my ASUS board only slots 1,3, and 4 don't share IRQ numbers with a ton of other things, so I had to use those slots for my Creamware cards. It was good that there was enough space between the female connectors on the cable CW gave me (just barely). I had to switch the position of the Pulsar I and the SRB 1 because the diodes were blocking the slot for my SATA cable. I also had to disable the onboard Ethernet and install a USB Ethernet adaptor because it was sharing an IRQ with one of the 3 slots I mentioned.

A friend of mine who is really geeky told me a long time ago that Creamware really ought to make cards that can share IRQ numbers like most cards do. I remembered also when I was arranging the cards that my screwless case doesn't lock the some of Creamware cards in place because they are a little wider than most cards. The Luna does fit though so I guess they fixed that.

Now I hope it's all fixed. Okay I haven't totally tested it yet. I just pray and that's saying a lot because I'm an atheist.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the issue is that Creamware cards CANT share irq's, I believe the issue is that Creamware cards shuffle so much data across the PCI bus (especially when using many ASIO or WDM channels and devices which require access to main ram like the Samplers and Reverbs/delays etc) that anything which can cause excessive latency on the PCI or hog the bus for itself will tend to conflict with Creawmare cards.

Of course I think we'd all love to have a card with its own RAM pool...

[quote]
On 2004-05-13 21:15, valis wrote:

Of course I think we'd all love to have a card with its own RAM pool...


Indeed, that would be so great ...

Hi all
>>> EDIT 29 July 2004
All seems ok now after disabling USB completely in Device Manager, and having a second Hardware Profile for USB stuff (modem etc).
This got rid of all PCI Overload msgs. So for now, stable.

I still have ACPI mode on, seems OK. My mobo is an ASRock, P3, 1 gig DDR ram.

So biggest tweaks were HT disable in BIOS, and USB disable in Device Manager.

>>> EDIT 16-July-04

My basic PCI Overload problem was solved by switching off Hyperthreading in BIOS (in XP). I did this *after* all the tweaks and card repositionings etc etc, but perhaps try this *FIRST*. It is very simple, go to BIOS on startup, go to processors, disable Hyperthreading, that is it. This is mentioned in the Manual Support section, dual processors cause PCI Overload, in Device Manager, there were 2 Processors (one virtual), due to HT. <<<

I have 3 cards (P2, Luna, SRB) and get the PCI Overload msg every now and then, often when moving to the sequencer (Sonar 3) BUT not always. I also get it when running a sampler standalone (NI Kontact). And other times. About once an hour, with the Reset command getting it all on again (it just goes silent, not full crash).

I have physically moved the cards around on my ASRock P4VT8 p4 3 GHz/ 1 meg RAM PC; XP Home; dual head AGP Radeon video card; all cards on separate IRQs - this helped a lot but not completely.

So do I do this replace ACPI in Device Manager or not?

Don't want to destroy a nearly stable system.

I also get DSP Overload and reload message on starting a project, even tho it has worked ok before, and is not too big.

I have heard that PCI problems can be caused by using insert effects in the mixer, I only use Masterverb at present, as this would be a pain to rout any other way. Is this a possible cause?

Any tips welcome.
PS never get a beep out of CW support ... despite the huge investment in their gear (yes I know they nearly went bust - hardly surprising!).




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2004-05-16 11:26 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2004-05-16 11:28 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2004-07-16 06:26 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2004-07-27 06:11 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2004-07-29 08:27 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2004-07-29 08:28 ]</font>

If you use inserts in mixers, the inserts are loaded on the same card as the mixer is - see Phase Compensation part of Mixers manual. Having them outside the mixer will make a more stable project, especially if you have a couple of cards. Try playing with Board assignment in the mixers you use. I suspect if you override SFP's load distribution with such a setup, you can load things more efficiently. For about the same reason there's people who stick to Micro- and Dynamixer instead of the STM series.

Good luck

I am using STM 1632 which does not allow board IDs, I used to have the STM48 (and the surround mixer) on the Luna but when I upgraded to sfp 3.1c, it no longer loaded, and Support refused to give me new keys. Then they stopped emailing! Apart from to offer me a Mixer pack at 150 eu.
I don't understand why it is fine 95% of time, then PCI Overloads at random - it is not associated with any particular act.
What do you know about Big Mixer 2B? SOme say it is out of date. But I don't want to waste ages reconnecting everything for no difference (or worse) in stability.
Does anyone ever make music with this gear? I am bothered by my workflow, especially now native (PC) software is so much better than a few years ago.
This is DSP based companies problem.

I actually haven't seen a PCI overflow since they fixed the dual cpu issues with the 3.1 (or 3.1a?) release.

I use ACPI mode and also have no problems with it under XP. With win2k it causes problems because it stacks everything on irq 9 or 11 and many cards don't deal well with the HAL managing of interrupt requests. Under XP they changed the support for ACPI so that if your motherboard supports APIC 2.0 or higher (your Asus should) then you will get 24 virtual irqs (or more with special hardware support). Wsippel actually has explained it in more detail somewhere on these forums.

In regards to IRQ sharing the best way to manage this is to physically locate the card in a slot that doesn't share addressing with anything else. Also disable *everything* you're not using in your BIOS (assuming you haven't already done this).

Incidentally my Pulsar2 shares an IRQ with my intel networking card (onboard) and there's no way around it for me but I also never see problems with it. Of course I don't copy large audio or video files across my network while loading my Creamware dsp meters to the top either.

System tuning with Creamware cards isn't totally plug & play but with a bit of research (and advice) you can probably overcome your problems and have a very workable system with no more bugs than you'll find in any other music software.

Yes, I seem to have got it more or less stable... there is too much invested to change it now. (I think it was Toshiba who discovered that having a good friendly Support section meant customers became loyal - rather than having products that don't go wrong in the first place).
I am thinking of installing v4.0, but have heard of problems. Not more hacking about!
Also the key thing seems a bit odd. Tempting though if it gets rid of this annoying PCI overload glitch. Any ideas?

hi

here 3 cards pulsar2(2001), luna2(2002), powerpulsar(2003)and i have your same problem(geoff99) i lost dsp communication
pci overlod and pci limited reached(at random).
in the last 2 days seem the system(sfp4) start and the level in stm48 works, but no sound out from the pulsar analog out,
i'm goin crazy maybe i must reinstalled all.

ale

I sort of fixed it by checking the IRQ numbers in Device Manager. On my XP Home PC, in ACPI (not Standard), I had to physically move a card to a different slot to get them all on separate IRQ numbers.
This reduced PCI Overload and DSP complaints by about 80% but didn't get rid of it completely.
PS I used to get the levels showing as normal, but no actual sound coming out as well, so it is not a physical fault.
Keep an eye on this forum in case I work out a solution.
PS the assignment of Mixer to Boards (cards) I cannot do as I have a STM 1632 only.
Good luck.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2004-05-18 05:42 ]</font>

I think you assign the entire package when you install the SFP.

I have the Registry settings here, which shows what software is registered to each card. Almost everything is reg. to the P2 card (the first I had); The Luna card has only 'Luna' and 'SFP'; the SRB card has nothing, except a 1 hour credit for GrenzFrequenzSynchrotron (which I had forgotton about).
Don't they dynamically assign the software accross the DSPs? How do I move reg., and isn't this all done by Support via Keys?
Should I delete the Grenz thingy (how do I do that?).

For isntance, the Main Studiotools is reg to P2 (for the STM 1632 mixer I am using).

Thanks all

i don't think that's the issue. rather, it's the order that devices are loaded and the availlable dsp at the time that they're loaded. when you press the "yes" button to optimize, all of the devices are relaoded in a nicer order.

On 2004-05-18 12:05, geoffd99 wrote:

Don't they dynamically assign the software accross the DSPs?

Yes, they do! For instance, if I want to play a ModIII with big polyphony, and it's registered to my little Luna, it's no problem that the ModIII uses my good ol' Pulsar1. Coupled cards should always work as ONE BIG card. Sorry for shouting.

Good luck, Thomas

exactly.the problem would come if a couple of big devices were already filling your p1 and the big mod3 patch got split between the two cards. that might not work so well so then the project might need to be optimized so that a more sensible arrangement could be made.(for example)

other than that, i see no reason for you to have any problems if you pc is set up properly. i haven't had a dsp overlaod in 2 years, maybe longer. are you using a scsi card or some other pci hog like a firewire card?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2004-05-19 00:12 ]</font>

Yes I assumed they were using all the DSPs... but wonder why mixers should be allocated to boards (cards). The split card issue also affects phase I believe, I did some posts about BigMixer v2 a while back.
There is nothing nasty in the pc apart from a dual head AGP Radeon video card, which is on a separate IRQ.
Can't be overheating as sometimes the PCI Overload msg appears almost immediately; then vanishes for several hours.
The PC appears to be set up well, robust generally and all new; Sonar 3.1 crashes occasionally though, which is very odd as Cakewalk are usually very solid. I have just removed all non-native Sonar Producer plugins so maybe this will help.
I have kind of run out of things to do (apart from take up guitar!) so any more esoteric tips welcome. (Perhaps buy a mixer package at 150 eu - since I am using STM 1632 - OR - use dynamixers only).

On the other hand I have NOT changed my XP Home PC to a Standard not ACPI ...
>>>"On Windows XP, all you have to do is go into Device Manager, right click on "ACPI Computer", and use the "Update Driver..." button to replace the driver with "Standard PC". XP is smart enough to rebuild the HAL registry tree by reinstalling all your devices after you reboot." <<<

This sounds like asking for trouble so I haven't done it. Has anyone else?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2004-05-19 04:57 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: geoffd99 on 2004-05-19 05:14 ]</font>