Pulsar not recognised by WinXP

Mayfair76 · Post by **Mayfair76** » Mon May 08, 2006 2:24 am

Hi there =D

i just obtained a used Pulsar w/ SFP 3.1c and am now trying to get it to work... but Windows somehow doesn't fully recognize it.
Media Player or Winamp are playing, but i get major dropouts after a few seconds (it's always fine for like 10-15s and then dropouts start), Cubase crashes when i try to use the asio driver. The first page of the control panel's "sounds and audio device" is plain gray and i don't have a speaker symbol for windows' volume control in the systray either.
I've tried all PCI-Slots, deactivated usb and tried several bios tweaks, but somehow the system stubbornly refuses to cooperate, i'm running out of ideas.

System is :

Athlon XP3000+ on ASUS A7V880
SATA Raid, no ide drives, 2 atapi drives on first ide port
WinXP SP2
PNY GeForce6800

I was wondering if somehow the system messed around with these virtual irqs, since according to bios, the Pulsar has irq 10 all to herself, but Windows assigned it irq 17 (or 21, depending on PCI Slot).

Thanks a lot

H-Rave · Post by **H-Rave** » Mon May 08, 2006 3:32 am

Have you installed the scope 3.1c platform ? The speaker symbol you won't get it you'll have the scope platform symbol.

[ This Message was edited by: H-Rave on 2006-05-08 04:35 ]

Mayfair76 · Post by **Mayfair76** » Mon May 08, 2006 4:15 am

Yab... i installed it and i have the SFP Logo in the Systray, i can access the routing panel and everything (i don't have the cablewhip, so all i could do was connect my ADAT and route the mixer output to a pair of ADAT outputs)

The thought kinda scares me... but would it make a great difference if i completely wiped the thing and did a new setup without ACPI ?

H-Rave · Post by **H-Rave** » Mon May 08, 2006 7:04 am

I suppose you've got all the asio drivers and wave drivers installed into the routing window correctly,and the hardware adat connections etc.

Post by **garyb** » Mon May 08, 2006 8:37 am

you won't have a volume control and the greyed out info is normal. this is NOT a standard windows soundcard.

as precviously posted, the routing window must be correct for the thing to work with cubase, but i suspect that there are other setup issues.

first, go to start/programs/accessories/system tools/system information/hardware resources/conflicts-sharing and tell me what irqs are shared with the scope card, if any...

ps, although it should still work, motherboards with via chipsets are notoriously bad performers.

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2006-05-08 09:38 ]

Mayfair76 · Post by **Mayfair76** » Mon May 08, 2006 12:53 pm

right now, it's sharing irq 16 with the graphics card (which it is not supposed to do, because according to the bios listing, the gc is on irq 11, while nothing but the pulsar is using irq 10)

Post by **garyb** » Mon May 08, 2006 12:56 pm

the os sets irqs in acpi mode. just change the slots. that's likely your solution.

Mayfair76 · Post by **Mayfair76** » Mon May 08, 2006 1:25 pm

:-/ didn't do the trick

Post by **garyb** » Mon May 08, 2006 2:03 pm

you still need to check for irq sharing. many devices can be disabled either in bios or device manager to gain free irqs.

also, in the control panel, go to power options and select "always on". be sure the harddrives turn off "never". in system/advanced/perfromance/settings uncheck everything except maybe "use common tasks in folders". right click on the desktop, choose properties, disable the screensaver and choose windows classic for the theme.

if it still doesn't work, there is either a problem with you hardware(mobo/memory), which is doubtful, or your install, which is likely. did you do a fresh installation of the os and all programs when you installed the card? if not, that's probably a very good idea(after repartitioning and reformatting of course).

if you have working hardware and the os is installed properly it absolutely HAS to work. the fact that you have the scope card in the device manager indicates that windows "sees" it.

why raid?

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2006-05-08 15:05 ]

Mayfair76 · Post by **Mayfair76** » Mon May 08, 2006 3:24 pm

Hm, since none of the Slots work, would you recommend switching off ACPI for the new installation ?
Raid b/c i built the machine with parts i got from friends that got themselves new ones, so they sort of "handed down" their stuff to me. But none of them ever had SCSI and i can't afford it, so i installed the raid, hoping that'd be pretty fast, too

Post by **garyb** » Mon May 08, 2006 4:36 pm

ide or sata is more than fast enough. raid is not required. there is no reason you can't get it going in acpi, but if you want to install in standard mode, go ahead.

none of the slots work? highly unlikely....if you have sharing with a usb controller, you CAN disable the one controller(in the device manager). there should be one or more still working. all ports will still work.

husker · Post by **husker** » Mon May 08, 2006 6:49 pm

Given you are only using the ADAT output...what is configured for the ADAT clock master? If that ain't right, or you have sampling rate mismatch you get drop outs also.

Try fiddling in that area of things...

Post by **garyb** » Mon May 08, 2006 10:05 pm

good point! what is the master and what is the slave?(livebar/set/samplerate)

Mayfair76 · Post by **Mayfair76** » Mon May 08, 2006 11:50 pm

ADAT is set to master, at 48k, Pulsar is slave(set->samplerate), simply because my ADAT doesn't save those settings so it's easier this way. But the dropouts i get are not the blips and glitches i know from sync problems, but massive, second-long old-cd-player-in-off-road-rallye skips.
I'm gonna sigh loudly and start from scratch... that should eliminate any possible software/driver issues.

husker · Post by **husker** » Tue May 09, 2006 12:41 am

What is you XP task manager cpu meter doing when you get these second long glitches?

What is you disk activity like?

That is quite strange behaviour

Mayfair76 · Post by **Mayfair76** » Mon May 29, 2006 12:08 am

I tried several combinations, it's an irq-related thing. I have another machine, intel-based asus mainboard, works just fine. But that one's my typewriter/surfboard, PIII 700... i hope i can get it to work in the audio workstation, thanks a lot for all your efforts !

Post by **garyb** » Mon May 29, 2006 12:14 am

o.k., so from the beginning..
in start/programs/accessories/system tools/system information/hardware resouces/conflicts-sharing, what is sharing an irq with the scope card?

bronYaur · Post by **bronYaur** » Mon May 29, 2006 10:14 pm

try to update your Mb bios