standard pc mode or acpi mode?

helldriver · Post by **helldriver** » Fri Sep 06, 2002 7:36 am

is it necessary with an asus tusl-c when installing win xp to choose pc standard mode?
or ist better to go with acpi mode?

Zer · Post by **Zer** » Fri Sep 06, 2002 9:36 am

this depends also on the rest of the components if one doesn´t work acpi conform...standard-pc...take look at the device manager and the components which are sharing the same irq. More than 2 shouldn´t share one irq.

In most cases you are able to set the PCI-slots via the bios of your computer. Please refer to the manual of your mainboard how to do this.

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Fri Sep 06, 2002 12:56 pm

XP seems to handle ACPI nicely, it hasn't caused me problems. (I have the same chipset)

helldriver · Post by **helldriver** » Fri Sep 06, 2002 5:42 pm

What´s the advantage of acpi in general?
And can i run Win98 as a standard pc and WinXP on another partition as acpi pc without having conflicts?

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Sat Sep 07, 2002 12:15 am

ACPI is invented by M$. They say it's cool to have OS controlling everything, but opposants say M$ uses it to certify only certain hardware for their OS.

The main difference for us between ACPI and standard pc is the IRQ sharing thing.

In Standard PC mode, your BIOS handles all interupts (IRQ's). There's 16 IRQ's.
In ACPI mode, your OS handles IRQ's. 16 is not enough sometimes, so devices can/have to share IRQ's.
Windows makes up to 256 (AFAIK) IRQ's for different devices. IRQ that were shared before, are now laid out over 256, so no more sharing. ACPI devices are controlled by your OS, power settings can be made accordingly. Windows settings for example allow network cards or disk drives to keep the computer from going into standby. Devices can be turned off, to save power and the device. Creamware OS is not ACPI compatible: Windoze cannot turn CW cards' power off, return from standby and expect your devices are still on the dsp.

ACPI and Standard Pc are 2 important modes, but more important is how your computer is physically structuctured. Read: how the wires on your motherboard are laid out. This depends mostly on your chipset. A chipset is a collection of wires and microchips controlling the traffic on the wires. These bundles of wires, busses, transport all data between CPU('s), RAM, PCI cards, AGP, IDE devices, USB and onboard audio etc. To make it simple, some (cheaper?) chipsets have one chip to control all traffic and allow no traffic from one device type to another. Other (more advanced) chipsets, like the ones from Intel, have different chips with dedicated functions. Traffic between device types can be made without calling on the chip who's busy with other devices.
Also the wiring will be different. On an 815 chipset, PCI and AGP are on a different bus than IDE and USB. This split of (PCI-)busses allows faster access to devices, cause less conflicts and is more stable.

This is all from a hobbyist, nothing is guarantied to be true in the text above. If someone sees errors or shortcomings, please reply. I'd be pleased to read.

helldriver · Post by **helldriver** » Sat Sep 07, 2002 4:04 am

Thanks atomic, I´m wiser now.
I think I´m going to install standard pc mode because you said creamware cards doesn´t understand acpi.
and I didn´t have too much cards in pc as well. I have still enough irq resources.

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Sat Sep 07, 2002 10:22 am

IT's just that you cannot 'Inhibernate' your pc when SFP is open. Inhibernate is to dump RAM on a disk, and shutdown the pc. On wakeup from inhibernation, your pc returns to the state you left it in when you switched it off, with all programs loaded like at the time of hibernation. You cannot expect XP to reload SFP from disk to memory to DSP. Only SFP can load onto DSP.

Hibernation is cool for laptops to save battery and time, but I think no serious DAW user uses it. A fresh reboot is much better on DAW

I think Subhuman will agree that XP handles ACPI mode quite nicely. My DSP cards work great with ACPI on XP, ever since I got XP...

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Mon Sep 09, 2002 4:44 pm

<i>I think Subhuman will agree that XP handles ACPI mode quite nicely. My DSP cards work great with ACPI on XP, ever since I got XP...</i>

Yes - I get the same performance with ACPI vs. Standard mode on my ASUS P4TE system under WinXP...

sagem · Post by **sagem** » Fri Sep 20, 2002 10:55 am

Well, i've installed my pc as standard pc and it didn't perform anymore. It was about 10 times slower.
I didn't mess around in de irq settings in the bios to fix this but just reinstalled xp with acpi, now it runs ok.

bontempi · Post by **bontempi** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 6:39 am

hi, maybe the problem i have is related to that acpi/std mode issue... 1st of all here's my config:
ASUS p4t-e pIV 1,6...
riva TNT2 32MB
pulsar II sfp 3.1a
symbios dual SCSI
1 scsi CD-ROM
1 scsi CD-rec
2 (U)ATA seagate HDs
2 (U)ATA WD HDs

i've followed all the hints of subHuman...
...standard pc... DMA... PnP off
but there's some shit going on inside...
i can't access my scsi CD-Roms!!!! i see them listed in the explorer, no probs obvious
another thing is w2000 always installs an MPU401 driver and I DON'T KNOW WHY!!!!
if there's a soundchip onboard(actually i don't know) there's no option in the BIOS to turn it off...

does anybody know if it's better to install the OS in ACPI than in standard mode???
another thing is that during the installation windows2000 can't find 2 or 3 files, but the installation continues... and when i did the same before (but with a different setup - without SCSI) i never had problems...

so: might the problem be the SCSI setup???

thx in advance for any helpful info

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Mon Sep 23, 2002 3:32 pm

ACPI mode is fine if you don't have any problems with it, but if you do run into problems Standard Mode often fixes them.. depends on what hardware you have.

helldriver · Post by **helldriver** » Mon Oct 07, 2002 8:33 pm

Are these components acpi compatible:

pulsar1
pulsar2
matrox g400dh
asus tusl-c intel ep chipset

how is it if i want to run win98 on partion c
and winxp on d in acpi mode.
is this configuration acpi compatible too or are i´m running into conflicts when using both systems???

i ask that again, because i´ve heart rumors that running acpi is the much better choice than running pc standard mode for a audioworkstation.

subhuman what´s your opinion?

any comment is welcome

Micha · Post by **Micha** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 5:37 am

This is about the config on my machine, only board is cusl2-c. I run standard PC on both systems. ACPI must be enabled in BIOS. So: for Win98 it is better to run without ACPI. If you want to combine you always must change the setting in BIOS before changing the OS. If you forget once, hardware detection will start and that's it for the trouble free operation.
Waiting for next tripleDAT Version...
Micha

helldriver · Post by **helldriver** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 6:38 am

thanks for your advice.
in think in case of mixing win98 and winxp in going to run xp in standard mode.

sandrob · Post by **sandrob** » Fri Oct 11, 2002 5:07 am

i don't not much about computer's stuff but i can tell my experience.
in acpi mode my computer worked like drunk. almost everytime when i opened sfp project i had dialogs that i must do some device's registration. and it was diferent every time. sometimes sfp ask for sts registration, sometimes ask for some synth, efect, mixer... without any logic.
in standard mode i don't have problems

i have asus p4t-e.