mb upgrade

[gustav]

Hi,

since 2 years i'm working with this :
asus p5wd2 premium
intel 830 3Ghz
DDR2 Corsair 4 GO
video matrox parhelia apve
the 2 sata 250GO working in standard ide
XP SP2 & cubase SX
1 Pulsar & 1 SRB-15DSP

its working but from time to time the pc is freezing - but until now i could live with this little problem
today I'm looking for some upgrades and hopefully get less problems

What are the best solutions to upgrade the motherboard and processor (and perhaps other components) ?
Thanks for your help !

[ChampionSound]

[...] Most stable MB have been reported for Intel DP 35 boards with core 2 duo. Simple, low power, stable.

Yep, and my DP35DP /w E8500 arrived a week ago and I'll be putting my new PC together this week

[gustav]

the freezing sounds strange, but I assume you have tried all that USB/firewire on/off and also looked for midi active sensing etc.

Yes I tried all and more than this - no way

Most stable MB have been reported for Intel DP 35 boards with core 2 duo. Simple, low power, stable.

Yes I've seen some posts here about this mb - if its the one should i replace the Corsair 4x1 Go DDR2-533 PC4200 Quality Select by another one ?

[AndreD]

go Intel CORE i7 !!

...just check out latest benchmark
http://www.benchwell.com/#

All the best,
Andre

[petal]

The intel core i7 does look intresting, but to my knowledge we still have to see a MB for this cpu with 3 x PCI-32 slots.

[gustav]

Hello

Finally I went for :
DP35DP + E8500
with my Pulsar and SRP

Installed XP, drivers etc
But now I got a problem :
I made some first testings : running scope, loading one of my most used projects
it loads fine on 44,1 KHz and 48 KHz
but when going for 96KHz I get the capacity limit of DSP cards message !

What can I do ?
The sonic core cards are loading in the following order :
first Pulsar from 1/1 to 1/6
then srb from 2/1 to 2/14
I can't remember if this is right and also if I have to chage something in the cset file.

the other point are http://hurpasard.free.fr/irq.rtf
srb got the 22 all alone but the pulsar2 is on 21 with 2 sata controlers & usb controler
how can i change this
I pit the pulsar on slot pci1 & srb on slot pci2

Bye - Gustav

[ChampionSound]

Interesting, I just started building my new setup too, also DP35DP + E8500!! But it contains only 3 x 6 dsp's. I thought this board would be hassle free to setup (I'm no computer wizard either), but I'll cross my fingers when I come to that point..

I'm sure Gary B can help you further with this.

good luck!

[garyb]

Gustav, you might want to try slot 1 and 3 or 2 and 3. there is a cionfig that'll have the least sharing going on. currently, you need to disable the usb controller that is sharing an irq with the Scope card in the device manager. even if you swap slots, you will at least have to disable a usb controller or two. there are plenty of controllers, however. don't panic...

[gustav]

I will try all this - Thanks.

but I can't see where / how I can disable usb controlers.
in the bios one can only disable all or no usb ports.
by the way : the bios option USB LEGACY : what does this mean ?

i did not try any other pci slot combinations because I'm waiting for some power cable extension - the antec p180 case has the power on the botton and so the 12V cable passes the way where PCI cards should be.
And the SRB will not go on the pci3 because of its length. we will see what we get ...

Bye - Gustav

[gustav]

Interesting, I just started building my new setup too, also DP35DP + E8500!! But it contains only 3 x 6 dsp's. I thought this board would be hassle free to setup (I'm no computer wizard either), but I'll cross my fingers when I come to that point..

I'm sure Gary B can help you further with this.

good luck!

One thing : make sure to install the Intel mb drivers immediately after windows installing - and don't run any other program at the same time.
I had to reinstall windows because of some bugs in Intel's install program - and a look on google showed me that there were many users that encountered this problem - without any solution if not reinstalling windows

good luck you too !

[garyb]

wow, that's not a problem that i've ever had.
naturally, i DO install the motherboard drivers first once windows is up, then the video drivers, then the tweaks, then the Scope drivers, then the irq check and usually disabling, and then all the software...

[ChampionSound]

I will try all this - Thanks.

but I can't see where / how I can disable usb controlers.
in the bios one can only disable all or no usb ports.
by the way : the bios option USB LEGACY : what does this mean ?

i did not try any other pci slot combinations because I'm waiting for some power cable extension - the antec p180 case has the power on the botton and so the 12V cable passes the way where PCI cards should be.
And the SRB will not go on the pci3 because of its length. we will see what we get ...

Bye - Gustav

Thanks Gustav, I will pay attention to that.

When I read Gary's post, he means that you have to disable the USB controllers in the windows device manager, not in your BIOS.

btw, I have bought the Antec P182 case for this system. Looks like we have quite a similar setup!
And now I see that the Project cards have just enough space to fit. The cards shouldn't have been even one cm larger!

[garyb]

yes, you are NOT going to disable PORTS. you DO need to disable CONTROLLERS. this can be done in the device manager.

if you'll notice, the usb controller that is sharing with the Scope card has a name, like 2951 or 2DYE7. just disable the single controller or controllers that are the problem and leave the rest operating.

[gustav]

Yes - now I see how to desactivate ... Thanks !

I changed the pulsar card to slot 3 and so it goes to IRQ18
IRQ18 is as you see in the previous file I posted http://hurpasard.free.fr/irq.rtf shared between SMBus Controller (What's this about ?), PCI Express Root 3, and 2 USB Controlers.
I desactivated only the 2 USB controlers as I don't know if I should do this with SMBUS and PCIEXPRESS too.
The Result : 44 and 48 KHz but at 96 KHz there is the wellknown message about DSP Limit
or perhaps I missed something : After changing the card to the other slot, I got to install the scope drivers again - but I did no other re-install - is this OK ?

I may be wrong about what I will say but so please correct me if I'm wrong :
PCI1 = IRQ21 - 1 usb ctrl can be desactivated - 2 SATA Ctrl (my 2 disks are sata)
PCI2 = IRQ22 - Seems to be ok
PCI3 = IRQ18 - 2 usb ctrl can be desactivated - what about SMBUS and PCIEXPRESS

I'm looking for some good advice to come over this !

[garyb]

the smbus won't make any trouble. you CAN disable it if you really can't stand it. the pci-e controller is probably #3 or #4 and so it problably isn't required for anything you're doing. you can disable it safely if you wish to, but it's not absolutely necessary. i doubt if the shared irqs from the sata controllers will cause any problem.

no, you don't need to do anything other than reinstalling the driver, that's correct.

as to the dsp limit message, that might be normal if you're loading a big synth or other multi dsp eating device. devices take twice as much dsp at 96k. the system asks if you want to optimise, right? that's the system trying to load the dsps in a way that works, especially if you are changing samplerate on an already loaded project....

[gustav]

Thanks Gary for all this explanations

I think you are all right : I desactivated SMBus and the PCI 3 Ctrl - and its the same thing
Even optimisation is not working it out.

One thing I did not see before : now the order of the cards is inversed : the first to appear on the dsp meter is the srb & rthan the pulsar - perhaps I should set this up with cset ?

I get the message even on the badest Ulli Setting
the project that i am using contains no synth, but :
STS000
PSYQ
VINCO S
Micromixer
STM1632
OPTIMASTER
ASIO fit source 64 : 8 sources & 10 destinations

Is this too much ?

[garyb]

hmmm,
it's hard to say from the info.

you can always physically switch the cards in the slots. that would be my preference. otherwise, there's no problem with the cset edit. i don't think that this is the cause of trouble, however as long as all the cards are type 2.

[gustav]

Hi,

PCI2 = SRB - IRQ22 (not shared)
PCI3 = PULSAR2 - IRQ18 (2 Controler USB, SMBus Controler et PCIExpress Root Port3 desactivated)

I loaded some old projects sx3 for testing - when playing the sound is cut sometimes and comes back immediatly after
When playing back wave files theres no problem

I created a very simple project to test recording and playing back in a simple way :
44 KHz - Ulli 4ms - recording seems to be ok
but when playing back cuts and cratches
with ulli 25ms playback seems better but too much latency on recording.

have you any suggestions ?

[garyb]

yes, disable the shared usb controllers.

[gustav]

already done
Maybe its about pci latency timing ? I tried to get the DoubleDawg tool but there's no more download out on the net.
I tried out other projects 44 KHz & 25 ms Ulli - allways the same playback problem
I've seen something strange : there are 2 mouse entries in the windows device manager
I hesitate to desactivate or desinstall one of them.
at this moment I see no solution ...