ABIT KT7A-RAID + Santa Cruz + Win2000 = Ouch!

NosferatuNosferatu Arizona
edited July 2003 in Hardware
I have an ABIT KT7A-RAID, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, and a fresh install of Windows 2000. I've read the only board the Santa Cruz has problems with is the KT7A-RAID (well... others similar ones too). I think it's the VIA chipset, but not 100% sure. Anyway, i've tried everything under the sun to fix the problems. The card stutters, skips, makes static noises, etc. it happens about 85% of the time that I boot up. It's pretty damn annoying, i got the card because I read it had a lot less problems than the SBLive! 5.1 cards (I got sick of the occasional static and horrible drivers from Creative).

I've heard the card works fine with this board under Windows XP, but using XP isn't an option for me since i'm not about to pay for a legal copy of it when I can use my copy of Windows 2000 w/o any activation issues after adding/removing hardware.

I've tried flashing my BIOS to various versions including versions hacked to include the 1.03b highpoint BIOS, then using win2k 1.03b hpt drivers.. at least 3 people on some newsgroups said that's fixed it, no luck in my case. I've tried changing various BIOS options, with no luck either. I think it might be that the card is sharing IRQ 11 with my other hardware when it would like its own IRQ. However, ACPI is enabled in the BIOS and windows 2000 is automatically handling the IRQ's... I read if I used the hacked BIOS to disable ACPI, i need to "reload" windows... i'm not sure if the poster meant format & reinstall or what...

I've also upgraded to the latest versions of all my device drivers, 4&1, etc. I'm also not sure if its the Highpoint drivers/bios at all.. I disabled the RAID controllers in the BIOS, rebooted, and they didn't show up in the device manager.. but i still experienced the sound.

I'm to the point where i'm just looking for another motherboard without a VIA chipset. :( But if anyone has experienced this issue or has any suggestions, let me know. Thanks in advance.

Comments

  • Cool-CanuckCool-Canuck
    edited July 2003
    You might try this - Go into advance chipset features menu of the BIOS and change

    Delay DRAM Read Latch to "No Delay"
    Fast R-W Turn Around to "Enable"

    See if that helps.
  • NosferatuNosferatu Arizona
    edited July 2003
    I tried your suggestion with no luck. Thanks though :(
  • AgeekAgeek
    edited July 2003
    Well, have you service packed 2000??? Some IRQ conflict issues with 2000 got fixed while other things were getting fixed.

    What I have typically had to do is to give the sound card its own IRQ and DMA channel(sometimes 2 of those) so nothing conflicts.

    With that board, cannot help in detail, but that is the general approach that consistently works with sound static if card is not damaged physically. Its base cause is getting a signal meant for another device and interpreting it as junk and saying so-- beep, blurp,buzz.

    Of all windows products, 2000 is the worst for multimedia and gaming. This is a perenial 2000 problem, not the card or the drivers per se, and possibly not the motherboard also. And BIOS SETUP is the key.

    If you can, pull the sound card drivers totally. Then see if you can figure out what is on IRQs 5, 7, and 9. Pull drivers for anything not networking or motherboard resources for such devices. Reinstall drivers for sound card, and if no noise put the printer driver back if you have one. Still no noises, see if anything on IRQ 9 triggers noise.

    If not, see what does not work. That probably had IRQ 5 and a modem driver install that detects an open IRQ 5 and both builtin ports enabled can use IRQ 5. Easiest answer then is to disable a modem port and let the drivers install and see if they then use the IRQ for the disabled port-- a USR modem install will do this, for instance.

    That is the general IRQ unconflictign procedure from way-back, and it works with modern boards also.
  • NosferatuNosferatu Arizona
    edited July 2003
    unfortunately i think it's a problem with the mobo and the card as the card doesn't mind other boards with everything else the same.

    Off Topic:
    I don't think Windows 2000 is quite as bad as you make it out to be. IMO, it's the best Microsoft OS to date. It's only bad for gaming if you play old games, the only game I've had a problem with is the original Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear and all the games in the series after that work fine.
  • SwordsmanSwordsman
    edited July 2003
    I just had to post as I used to haunt these same boards when the KT7A and KT7A-Raid were the hottest thing in the PC world. This I will say, as I had both of them with the ONLY sound card that would work perfectly with them....the Santa Cruz! Of course that was back with 98SE and even ME, but it worked flawlessly. No tweaking, no driver issues. Maybe a PCI slot juggle if you were to put it in slot 1 or 5 by accident, but otherwise they were the rave! I do think it is either a W2K driver issue, or something is attempting to hog the bus, just like a SBLive would. Make sure that you are NOT using any Hyperion drivers for your board (if so, remove them and go back to like the 4.31 4 in 1's. The Hyperions were not written for your chipset!) and I would suggest starting from scratch with nothing in but the sound card, as Ageek said. Both of my systems ran great and never hiccupped.

    Good Luck,
    S!
  • NosferatuNosferatu Arizona
    edited July 2003
    Yeah, i've read Win9x and XP are usually fine, it's just an issue with ACPI and the way 2000 handles IRQ's. :confused:
  • Cool-CanuckCool-Canuck
    edited July 2003
    Some reading for ya. Might be helpfull.
    http://www.sudhian.com/showfaqs.cfm?fid=2&fcid=26
    Also look at the sound section. This is Paul's FAQ for the KT7a.
  • NosferatuNosferatu Arizona
    edited July 2003
    Thanks, i've been to that site but not that page. I think i'm going to reinstall Win2000 with ACPI disabled. I just wasted the past couple days getting my system usable again too, damn! :mad:

    We'll, I guess i'll start backing up a few things and reinstall Windows for the 2nd time in 3 days... i'll let you know how it goes. Thanks guys.
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited July 2003
    I also used the kt7a-raidn win 2k with the santa cruiz card and had 0 problems with it. I was wondering if maybe it is some other hardware that is causing the problems. A week possibility but who knows.
  • NosferatuNosferatu Arizona
    edited July 2003
    Originally posted by Komete
    I also used the kt7a-raidn win 2k with the santa cruiz card and had 0 problems with it. I was wondering if maybe it is some other hardware that is causing the problems. A week possibility but who knows.

    Can you go into computer management ( Control Panel > Administrative Tools ) then click: System Information > Hardware Resources > IRQs... what do you have sharing the same IRQ (11)? For me its:

    - NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4200 with AGP8X
    - HPT370 UDMA/ATA100 RAID Controller
    - VIA USB Universal Host Controller
    - VIA USB Universal Host Controller
    - SMC EZ Card 10/100 (SMC1211TX)
    - Santa Cruz(tm)

    if your santa cruz isn't on IRQ 11, which one is it on? Also, do you have ACPI Enabled? Thanks.

    P.S. I just disabled the serial ports in the BIOS since i'm not using them, and now the devices listed above are on IRQ and not IRQ 11... though I think that makes no difference really.
  • maggie99635maggie99635 Alaska
    edited July 2003
    I have that motherboard. Everything is sharing IRQ 11. What slots do you have the hardware on? I ran 2000 on it until XP came out.
    If your going to change anything around make sure and enable Force Update ESCD each time. AGP&1 share, 2&3 share, 4&6 share, 5 is for the Highpoint. My Nic is on 6 sharing with the USB . Maybe your soundcard doesn't like to share. I have a soundblaster 5.1 . It never stuttered . The only problem I had was when I went to XP I had to download a 377mb sound drivers to get all my software back for the soundblaster.
    ACPI is enabled. Have you always run that 8X video card on there?
    How big is your power supply? Make sure it is a good one.
    I think I was running bios 64 with the default HPbios. Needed to F6 during install. Raid1 could have been an older bios.
  • NosferatuNosferatu Arizona
    edited July 2003
    Slots:
    Soundcard on PCI 5
    NIC on PCI 6
    (Videocard on AGP1 obviously)


    But I've tested different slots and it didn't help. I think it's the card doesn't like sharing, they recommend giving it it's own IRQ on the Turtle Beach site (and UK equivalent card's site).

    I need to find out when I press F5 during the Windows 2000 install to install "Standard PC" and not "ACPI..." since I also need to press F6 to install my RAID drivers.
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited July 2003
    Well I've upgraded since then but im still useing the sound card. I also used a gforcemx on that mobo. dunno if that helps. I could give you a listing of all the parts i had running in that rig but that would be about it.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2003
    You have raid on that board so get the SC out of slot 5. It needs to be in either slot 2 or slot 3 with the other empty! Do not use any other slots. You still only get FOUR irqs at the board level and the only way just about to NOT share an IRQ at the board level is in one of those slots AND the other slot must be empty.

    Yes you press F5 and F6 at the same time. Just whack f5 and f6.

    Mine worked fine on that board with acpi though. Try disabling all the extra crap in the bios you don't need also like serial ports etc... If your gonna run without acpi you really should try using a bios for that board that allows disabling acpi in the bios if yours doesn't. Remeber even WITHOUT ACPI you still share irqs and the only way to get it own IRQ is still in slot 2 or 3 with the other empty just about. You can use 4 or 6 with the other empty if USB is disabled. Its not just that its sharing and IRQ but exactly which card or device its sharing with also.

    pci 1 shares with agp.
    2 & 3 share
    4 & 6 share and I think they share with USB also
    5 shares with raid and ACPI itself.

    I may have the usb and acpi backwards in the layout above. Been a long time since I had that board.

    And by all means move ONE card at a time and as maggie said always use "force escd update" and also have the bios set to "pnp OS = no" so the bios will try and reset the IRQ's itself.

    Tex
  • NosferatuNosferatu Arizona
    edited July 2003
    @Tex, yeah I moved the card last night from 5 to 3. I didn't move it before because i knew until I disabled ACPI it wouldn't make a difference. Also, I was planning on flashing the BIOS with one from biosmods.com (64 w/ 1.2.0612 Highpoint to be exact) since it also has the mod to allow me to disable/enabled ACPI.

    If I use that BIOS to disable ACPI, install Windows 2000 and disable ACPI during install (choose "Standard PC"), and then after the install was done I flashed the BIOS to the one from the ABIT site (which has ACPI enabled all the time)... would Windows try to enable ACPI.. or since I installed it using the "Standard PC" HCL, would it not matter. I guess what i'm trying to say is.. can I just use the modded BIOS until I get stuff setup, then use the ABIT one, or should I just keep it on there all the time? Does anyone know where to find the A9 bios modded to let you enable/disable ACPI and with highpoint drivers 1.1 or higher? Thanks.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2003
    You can mod it yourself with modbin. If tmod is back in the bios section here he can maybe help or try the sudhain site linked above that had Pauls FAQ section as he also has downloads.

    If you load win2k with a bios that has acpi enabled then just stay with that one.

    You say you stuck it in slot 3 right? Is slot 2 empty also? It must be or it does not help.

    I am no guru with modbin but I can mod a bios to another hpt bios level for ya. You can do it yourself really. Its very very easy to do using cbrom. Tmod might even have a guide for ya in the bios section here.

    tex
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