ASUS A7N8X - PCI Master overflow-there it is... :(

Morphium · Post by **Morphium** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 3:10 pm

Hello mates,

I just graded my MoBo up to an A7N8X Deluxe Rev 2.0 after reading several Posts that this one performs really good according to Pulsar Cards.

Before the change my A7N266-C really was smooth like hell making 9 MVs easily.

Now I plugged my Pulsar I and my Pulsar XTC into this new "performer" and was really dissappointed because it did only 2 MV´s. Gosh! This is a new nightmare for me.

So searching for the problem I did the following steps.

Switched Pulsar I from Slot 1 to 5 and XTC vice versa > didnt help

Switched off USB to avoid sharing on the same IRQ > didnt help

Plugged out the Pulsar I card > DID HELP!
I could run the MV´s up to the cards DSP max.

So whats going on here? I somehow have in mind someone said the Pulsar I card has on old PCI interface. But shouldnt the PCI be compensated by the new XTC card?
Also "aMO" reported success here with this Mobo and great results with an Pulsar 1 and a PS. The only difference is that he has the PS I plugged in the Slot 4 and the PS in 1 (I think) also running Standard PC instead of ACPI

Could this be the difference?

Please help me as I am stuck in this case

aMo if you are around please feel free to make suggestions

Thank you!

[ This Message was edited by: Morphium on 2003-10-01 16:11 ]

Post by **garyb** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 7:21 pm

did you do a complete reinstall of the os?(fdisk and format)

did you properly install the mobo drivers?do you have the latest bios and a rev2 board?

Morphium · Post by **Morphium** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 2:32 am

Hi gary,

I have to admit I didnt set up the OS from scratch. I installed the chipset drivers properly. Only thing which makes me curious is why the XTC card can run 9 MVs solely while the Pulsar I when plugged in too, slows down PCI bandwith enormously.

I will try and investigate further by doing a backup of the current OS and I will do a fresh install with the chipset drivers. I will also try standard pc if the APCI fails also.

Board is as already stated revision 2.0 and Bios is up to date with 1006

[ This Message was edited by: Morphium on 2003-10-02 03:33 ]

Post by **garyb** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 11:48 am

i seem to remember that that board functions better with acpi.i have a pulsar1 w/ a power pulsar and a pulsar1 srb and everything is cool,so it really shouldn't be the pulsar1 making a problem.(unless it's broken,which is doubtful)

Morphium · Post by **Morphium** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 1:19 pm

Ok. my testing with Standard PC had the same results. So finally I see no further chance and I think something maybe really broken there. How can I check it to its full extend upon functionality? I think there is now way

BTW do you also run the A7N8X Deluxe rev 2?

Thank you so far for the precious suggestions!

Update:
Ok. Did another test. Plugged all my cards except my AGP Card out and tried it again. No success. Tried the Pulsar Board on PCI 5 alone without any further hardware...switched off everything :
PCI Overflow after on Masterverb. Your guess with a wrecked board could be true because it could have been compensated in my old mobo by the SRB2 and therefore "only" ran 9 MVs which was enough bandwith for my projects.

Still one test to go on my old AMD 761 Machine. If the card fails there I have the proof that it doesnt work properly. If it does work then I have a big problem

Will keep you updated

[ This Message was edited by: Morphium on 2003-10-02 15:31 ]

aMo · Post by **aMo** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 4:00 pm

To be honest, I actually have very little expertise on the matter, I was helped out by the friendly folks here on z and on #pulsarmusic on EFnet..

But I do use standard pc mode, and have installed my Pulsar 2, Scope SRB and Powersampler in slots 1, 4 and 5, those slots do not share any irq's in standars pc mode (or at least, they do not share with anything else than another CW-card..)

[ This Message was edited by: aMo on 2003-10-03 17:02 ]

Morphium · Post by **Morphium** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 10:42 am

Hi aMO,

thanks for your reply. Your details give me a much better picture what I seem to suggest.
From one of your earlier posts I thought you have a Pulsar I. Now I have the proof that the old Pulsar I somehow with its old PCI architecture makes the whole system go down.
The last proof will be the installation on my old AMD 761 based system and then I´ll know that my next system will be definately a Intel based one (and forever).

aMo · Post by **aMo** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 12:39 pm

No no, I HAD a Pulsar1 (still lying here in my room if anyone want's is hehe), I bought a Scope after I got the A7N8X since I then was sure I would be able to get proper performance out of it.

One thing though, is your Pulsar1 in the 1st pci slot?
If it is in the 1st pci-slot, it is automatically designated as the master-card, and you only get older pci-performance, if you have a card with new-pci structure (Pulsar2, Powersampler etc) you can put it 1st and IT will be the ONLY card that communicates with the pci-bus.

Morphium · Post by **Morphium** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 4:47 pm

Yes it is. Interesting!
My config is like this:
AGP : Radeon9500
PCI 1:Pulsar 1
PCI 2:
PCI 3:ESI Waveterminal 192
PCI 4:UAD
PCI 5:Pusar XTC (SRB)

Once SFP is set up this way do I have to change some .ini settings for it to take my XTC in Slot 1 as master or does SFP reassign automatically the first card in the row as master?

Thank you for this very precious information

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 6:17 pm

see

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... 47&forum=1

to set board sequence in cset.ini

cheers, Tom

Morphium · Post by **Morphium** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 7:50 am

Thank you Tom,

I ran several Tests now and ended with these results.

Plugged the PS I alone into my old AMD761based System and it ended with 2 MVs before it striked out with my beloved message.

Did all of the above tweaks : Switched XTC into Slot 1 and PS I into 5. Did a cset.ini adaption and ended with 5 MVs before a Overflow (thats already better).
Everything else is worse and simply not acceptable.

I get along now with my new Projects and the actual performance is ok and quite acceptable but the A7N8X has definately enough power to cope with PCI traffic. For me just one conclusion is left: The board will be sold / or traded in ASAP. I am simply sick of this old kind of PCI architecture.

NB:Is there any way I can have a proof that the PS I is not wrecked. I mean can there be a "half working mode" in some way? I rememember somehow the board did perform a lot better on my old System.

[ This Message was edited by: Morphium on 2003-10-06 06:41 ]

next to nothing · Post by **next to nothing** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 6:35 am

sorry to be a bit basic here, but i cant see u mentioning a BIOS update here... i guess u have updated, but if u havent, please do

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 7:09 am

On 2003-10-04 17:47, Morphium wrote:
Yes it is. Interesting!
My config is like this:
AGP : Radeon9500
PCI 1:Pulsar 1
PCI 2:
PCI 3:ESI Waveterminal 192
PCI 4:UAD
PCI 5:Pusar XTC (SRB)

Once SFP is set up this way do I have to change some .ini settings for it to take my XTC in Slot 1 as master or does SFP reassign automatically the first card in the row as master?

Thank you for this very precious information

I'm not too sure but isn't there something in the installation manual that says not to put the Pulsars in the first PCI slot?

Zer · Post by **Zer** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 8:33 am

hahahaha...ASUS....I already made my experiences...I didn´t use anything from asus since then...and guess what? No problems.

Morphium · Post by **Morphium** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 10:59 am

@piddi
Yes. Sorry that I didnt mention it. I have 1006d2 at the moment running on this Mobo.

@paulrmartin
Creamware always suggested to take the "middle" PCI Slots, which are already heavily occupied by NICs and IDE. The only PCI Slots which share each other are 1 and 5. Also the USB is taking its position in there but that´s been disabled for testing purposes until the problem is resolved.
Anyway you suggested something which makes a little sense. Why not just try some other sort of PCIs. You know I did make this kind of configuration due to user reports (like aMO) in which they have their cards in the same manner installed, thus I did it for mine naturally thinking.

@Zer
Do you really think Asus is the main problem in this game? I didnt have any stability issues up to now and I am very satisfied the way my DAW works, only that I don´t see to get the point between my old A7N266 and the A7N8X performance- and configuration wise when it comes to CW Cards.

valis · Post by **valis** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 5:58 pm

Actually in modern motherboards PCI slot1 tends to share irq with its nearest neighbor...AGP slot.

Zer · Post by **Zer** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 6:30 am

Do you really know if it´s a real Asus? Asus are the most faked boards of the world because you can take triple the money as for an compareable one.

You are able to reread my experiences in several boards.

Okay even in germany the have a free hotline, but if someone points me in the direction to flash my bios although I got a checksum error...hum...

Morphium · Post by **Morphium** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 7:37 am

@valis
Yes. This was my way of thinking, too. In this case it seems Asus has done a pretty good job to the normal structure we normally know

When starting up the IRQ allocation table is shown and there can be seen that the PCI 1 and PCI 5 share one IRQ among with the USB.

@Zer
Might be true but in general they have a very good reputation.Even amongst the P4 Asus users there are not much complaints. Sure there might be fakes around but this is a discussion which belongs to an other sort of category/board.

Zer · Post by **Zer** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 10:08 am

If your usb is unused simply deactivate it via the BIOS.

If you don´t need your parallel or serial port deavtivate them, too.

Basic Pitch · Post by **Basic Pitch** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 9:57 am

Here is the problem,

Since you did not do a full re-install your HD may be reading some of the miss information for certain hardware, as a general rule of thumb, when ever you move to a new mobo, you will 100% want to start the HD from scratch and install as you go.

I have the same board and with a PPSII 15 DSP I was able to reach I think 12-13 MVs with a very large SFP project, so what I would suggest is to grab an old HD for testing pourposes, wipe it clean and do a fresh install and see the wonderous joys of this board. Also this board is highly suggested by CW themselfs.

Next DO NOT install this board in standard PC. The simple reason is that this board support up to 25 IRQs and the reason that is, is due to how much onboard items that need to run for the board to function properly, 15 IRQs in standard mode is not nearly enough, if you do not let the board install in ACPI you will not be able to use many features of the board and some hardware specif items that are needed.

So in conclusion:

- Fresh install, never write a new mobo over older software.

- Install ACPI and let windows arrange IRQs there is plenty to go around

- Tweak and be happy.

Cheers!