ACPI and creamware question

flextone · Post by **flextone** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 7:25 am

Hi guys, i`ve read the board and just wanted to clear a few things up:

I just got a new PC, intel E6400 cpu, Intel DP965LT mobo. cubase keeps crashing on me (stutter freeze). i`ve unchecked the "reset board if idle" box and was ok for like a week, but now the freezes are back. so, i`ve read here that i should have luna on irq 16 or less, and that should solve my problems (right now it`s on 21), is that true? and if yes, does that mean i need to reinstall xp with the "standard pc" option and thats it? right now my acpi is enabled. are 16 irq`s enough for everything?

thanks for your help creamware friends

Post by **garyb** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 11:03 am

more important would be that the irq is unique. acpi works very well with that board.

starrt/programs/accessories/system tools/system information/hardware resources/confilcts-sharing look to see if the luna shows up there. if so, what does it share with?

flextone · Post by **flextone** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 3:31 am

it has no conflicts, i`ve checked. but i still get crashes all the time, and it`s the same crash every time, it just freezes and the sound stutters, so i have to reboot manually.

btw, in a recent thread i saw this:

psionic wrote:
OK, and now, the FINAL solution for random freezing and crashes !!!

I have been investigating this for months and discovered following:

The problem seems to be IRQ channel greater than 16 or "APIC ACPI Function" - wich means that advanced IRQ steering routine is active. It is the case with all newer motherboards, and no other things like HyperThreading, dual core etc are the problem. Disabling APIC through BIOS will 1000% solve all problems with SCOPE and random freezing, but will disable OS support for HT (even if it remains enabled in BIOS). So, after disabling ACPI APIC function in BIOS, you should reinstall windows and you will get only 16 IRQ channels, and also - working SCOPE. If you have more than 16 IRQs on your computer, it meens that APIC is enabled, and you could expect instabillity from SFP. Some motherboards do not have possibility to disable APIC, so you need to install standard PC, but you will loose a lot of different enchantments of your OS. I do not recommend that. With APIC disabled you will loose only HyperThreading. ( Only?! )

Please CREAMWARE, solve this problem, FIX YOUR DAMN DRIVERS !!!

<font>[ This Message was edited by: psionic on 2006-03-17 04:44 ]</font>

i don`t have an option in BIOS to disable apic, what should i do?

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 4:21 am

you've quoted it above

...Some motherboards do not have possibility to disable APIC, so you need to install standard PC, but you will loose a lot of different enchantments of your OS...

cheers, Tom

flextone · Post by **flextone** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:58 am

what will i loose? psionic said he doesn`t recommend this. btw, if i get my luna on irq 16 or lower without disabling acpi, is that ok as well? how can i get luna on a specific irq?

Post by **garyb** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 1:08 pm

that's not the problem.
that motherboard works with acpi. i've even put 3 cards on it.
where did you find no conflicts? a shared irq is not a conflict, but it will make problems. did you check where i suggested?

are you using midi when this happens, or do you have a midi controller(keyboard) connected? if so, use a midi monitor connected to the luna midi source(in the routing window) and see if the controller is sending active sensing. if so disable it or use a midi filter. midi feedback loops will also make that kind of freeze happen....

flextone · Post by **flextone** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 1:42 pm

garyb, my luna has no conflicts where you told me to check. i do have a midi controller connected, i`ll check for active sensing and let you know. how do i go about this? just check the "show active sensing" in the midi monitor and see if something comes up? i don`t know if this is connected, but i do get a midi hang every now and then.

Post by **garyb** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 2:05 pm

yes, actually it should show active sensing from the get-go. if your controller is sending it, there'll be a steady stream.

valis · Post by **valis** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 11:18 pm

Active sensing annoys me, I really wish my jd800 had the option internally to turn it off. One of these days I'll buy a filter...

flextone · Post by **flextone** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 10:04 am

I think that was it garyb, i`ll let guys know if i still get crashes but so far so good.

thank you so much.

what is active sensing anyway?

Post by **garyb** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:59 pm

some bs that allows certain hardware to recognize each other. the sheer volume of data fills midi buffers and causes lockup.

glad it's fixed.

thomashenrydavies · Post by **thomashenrydavies** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 3:36 pm

Flextone, have you now resolved your issues? If so, what exactly did you do?

I have just built a new system based on a DP965LT board, and am having suttering freezes with Cubase, one or two a night.

At the moment, my Creamware board is the only PCI card apart from a GFX card, and is sitting in the bottom slot, on IRQ 18, sharing with 2 USB host controllers and a PCI Express Root.

Post by **garyb** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 4:20 pm

first, you should move the card to a different slot to see if you still have sharing.

then, if you do, you can disable the one usb controller you might have that's shared. also, have you turned the parrallel and serial ports and the built-in audio off in the bios? these are usually unneeded and they take up irqs....

move the card and then tell me what is shared and i can help you get it going. i know this mobo is good with scope, i've built a few daws with it.

thomashenrydavies · Post by **thomashenrydavies** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:05 pm

garyb wrote:first, you should move the card to a different slot to see if you still have sharing.

then, if you do, you can disable the one usb controller you might have that's shared. also, have you turned the parrallel and serial ports and the built-in audio off in the bios? these are usually unneeded and they take up irqs....

move the card and then tell me what is shared and i can help you get it going. i know this mobo is good with scope, i've built a few daws with it.

Gary, thanks for the response!

In between my post and reading your response, I moved my CW board to another slot, which it was sharing only with a 'High defintition Audio' something or other. I disabled this in Device Manager, so now my CW board is reported as having its own IRQ all to itself.

I've now gone and diabled all the features in the BIOS that you mention (plus FireWire for now, and when my new laptop arrived, I will disable LAN as well).

Hopefully things should play nicely now

Intel Desktop utilites reports all temp readings within acceptable ranges, and memtest86 is happy with my memory, so hopefullt now I'm sorted.

Thanks in advance!

Post by **garyb** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:17 pm

my pleasure!
i hope it's sorted now.

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 9:19 am

I've experienced a problem when there are 24 IRQ's -- changing the ULLI setting causes a freeze, and ASIO playback will occasionally freeze and stutter. The fix was to change the SCOPE driver from the 3.1c/4.0/4.5 driver to the 3.1b driver (which is still compatible with later software).

Let me know if you're interested, I can give it to you....

Shayne

Post by **garyb** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 9:59 am

no driver issues with that mobo....

thomashenrydavies · Post by **thomashenrydavies** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 2:02 am

garyb wrote:my pleasure!
i hope it's sorted now.

Sadly, it doesn't seem to be. I had about 3 freezes over the weekend. Looks like a a slow methodical process of elimination is required. I just hope its not a defective mobo; that would be a major hassle.

Flextone, have your issues gone? What steps did you take?

Post by **garyb** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 2:08 am

the main thing i've seen make the computer freeze is either a shared irq(eliminated right?) and midi active sensing. you're using a midi controller with cubase and checked for active sensing and midi clock, right?

thomashenrydavies · Post by **thomashenrydavies** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 2:16 am

Shayne White wrote:I've experienced a problem when there are 24 IRQ's -- changing the ULLI setting causes a freeze, and ASIO playback will occasionally freeze and stutter. The fix was to change the SCOPE driver from the 3.1c/4.0/4.5 driver to the 3.1b driver (which is still compatible with later software).

Let me know if you're interested, I can give it to you....

Shayne

Sounds like I might have to try that - although I dont have any problems changing my buffer sizes, I am getting random freezes.

Of course, there is still the chance that my problems are not related to the CW at all!