IRQ conflict, sound hardware buffer causing Civ4 crash?

[Spocko]

I just ran msinfo32 (Start -> Run) and I find that both my video and my sound are using IRQ16... is this a problem?

IRQ 16 RADEON 9600 SERIES OK
IRQ 16 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 16 NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller OK
IRQ 16 Creative SB X-Fi OK

I've been getting intermittant crashes while playing Civ4, and I'm starting to think it is related to my soundcard.

Also, dxdiag says that my soundcard does not support hardware buffering...!?

It is a new card...

Spocko

 

[Neon Deon]

I just ran msinfo32 (Start -> Run) and I find that both my video and my sound are using IRQ16... is this a problem?

IRQ 16 RADEON 9600 SERIES OK
IRQ 16 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 16 NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller OK
IRQ 16 Creative SB X-Fi OK

I've been getting intermittant crashes while playing Civ4, and I'm starting to think it is related to my soundcard.

Also, dxdiag says that my soundcard does not support hardware buffering...!?

It is a new card...

Spocko

go into system tools and under system info find your irq settings and paste them up to your post.


Also post a dxdiag file please.

 

[blargh]

check your bios to make sure onbaord sound is disabled

 

[Spocko]

Thanks Neon Deon,

I see that your system is similar to mine, although your CPU rocks. Have you had any trouble running the game?

I've just re-run and generated a new dxdiag.txt - it should be attached if I did everything correctly. Running dxdiag's "Test DirectSound" yields the following dialog: "Your sound card does not support hardware buffering. Sounds will only play back from software buffers."

Here's my IRQ's from msinfo32:

IRQ 0 System timer OK
IRQ 1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard OK
IRQ 3 Communications Port (COM2) OK
IRQ 4 Communications Port (COM1) OK
IRQ 6 Standard floppy disk controller OK
IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock OK
IRQ 9 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK
IRQ 12 Logitech-compatible Mouse PS/2 OK
IRQ 13 Numeric data processor OK
IRQ 14 Primary IDE Channel OK
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE Channel OK
IRQ 16 RADEON 9600 SERIES OK
IRQ 16 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 16 NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller OK
IRQ 16 Creative SB X-Fi OK
IRQ 17 VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller OK
IRQ 17 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller OK
IRQ 19 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 19 NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller OK
IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK

And here's the memory allocation from msinfo32:

0x0000-0x9FFFF System board OK
0xFEC00000-0xFEC000FF System board OK
0xFEE00000-0xFEE00FFF System board OK
0xBF000000-0xBFFFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller OK
0xC0000000-0xEFFFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller OK
0xF0000000-0xF7FFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller OK
0xE0000000-0xEFFFFFFF RADEON 9600 SERIES OK
0xBF800000-0xBF80FFFF RADEON 9600 SERIES OK
0xD0000000-0xDFFFFFFF RADEON 9600 SERIES - Secondary OK
0xBFFF0000-0xBFFFFFFF RADEON 9600 SERIES - Secondary OK
0xFFEFFF00-0xFFEFFFFF VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller OK
0xFFEFE000-0xFFEFEFFF NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller OK
0xFFEFD000-0xFFEFDFFF NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller OK
0xFFEFFE00-0xFFEFFEFF Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller OK
0xFFC00000-0xFFDFFFFF Creative SB X-Fi OK
0xF8000000-0xFBFFFFFF Creative SB X-Fi OK
0xFFF80000-0xFFFFFFFF Motherboard resources OK
0xFFB80000-0xFFBFFFFF Motherboard resources OK
0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus OK
0xA0000-0xBFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller OK
0xA0000-0xBFFFF RADEON 9600 SERIES OK
0xC8000-0xDFFFF PCI bus OK
0xF0000-0xFFFFF System board OK
0x100000-0x4FFFFFFF System board OK
0x50000000-0xFFFFFFFF PCI bus OK

I didn't see an efficient way to cut-and-paste IRQ and memory information via the System Properties panel - but I hope this information encompasses what I need to illustrate my system problem.

I've just recently lowered my graphics level to Medium using the Civ4 in-game options. The system ran faster, but alas, crashed within 15 minutes (blue screen to reboot).

Thank you for your attention,
Spocko

 

[Spocko]

check your bios to make sure onbaord sound is disabled

Thanks - I had already set the jumper on the motherboard disabling the onboard sound. There is no switch to set in the BIOS - I figure there is no switch because the jumper cancels the need to set anything in the BIOS related to onboard sound.

 

[blargh]

weird... sure sounds like the old onboard sound I assume you used before is still sitting on IRQ 5. Any way to check yo see whats using that IRQ?

*hasn't heard of an irq conflict in years*

 

[Chieftess]

You can also check IRQ ports in Windows.

(I remember how it's done on a Win98 system, but I don't know offhand for Win XP - somewhere in start->settings->config... probably computer maintanence). You should be able to find a piece of hardware and change its' IRQ port if you can.

 

[Neon Deon]

ok a few more questions please.

Your g drive what is that?

when you ran your dxdiag file was that from the desktop with no open programs?

how many usb ports to you have?

and are they front and back or are they all in the back together on the motherboard?

 

[blargh]

almost sounds like he installed the new card without deinstalling the onboard sound from device manager first... I could be mistaken though...

ahh well enough for me time to go play

 

[Spocko]

weird... sure sounds like the old onboard sound I assume you used before is still sitting on IRQ 5. Any way to check yo see whats using that IRQ?

That rings true. I remember when I built this thing three years ago that I struggled to disable the onboard audio before installing my first soundcard.

Maybe I should (1) uninstall my soundcard, (2) set the jumper to enable onboard audio, and then... either (3a) use XP to uninstall the onboard audio driver (or at least figure out how to update it) OR (3b) use the BIOS to switch off the onboard audio since I bet that switch will become available once I flip the jumper.

Thanks for your attention,
Spocko

 

[Spocko]

Your g drive what is that?

when you ran your dxdiag file was that from the desktop with no open programs?

how many usb ports to you have?

and are they front and back or are they all in the back together on the motherboard?

Thanks Neon Deon for your time.

The G drive (was) a virtual drive managed by GameDrive, a solution that has never worked for me in three years - so I finally uninstalled it tonight. No more G drive.

I ran dxdiag with several open programs. I've just whittled down my startup programs via msconfig, and tonight I will run another dxdiag and post it here.

USB ports have been a problem for me too. This is all so embarassing. I have four USB ports off the motherboard (in the back), a few USB ports on the front whose wires are not connected to the motherboard, and I've got a PCI card with four USB ports on it - two of them are USB 1.? and the other two are USB 2.0? It seems I didn't connect the USB 2.0 to the motherboard (it uses a cable from the card to a connector on the motherboard, a cable I haven't acquired). This question hints that my USB drivers are questionable?

I'll post the dxdiag after closing the browser and upload it.

One thing about all this - I'm certainly learning how to fine tune my system.

In other news, I reduced my ingame video settings to medium, a step that seemed to automatically set my units to display as one figure instead of three (multiple). The game ran very fine, scrolled very well, crisp dialog boxes, all with a game that I see the whole world and I am a collossus (Germany) with 20 or so cities. It was performing well. So, I reset the switch for showing single/multiple figures to be multiple, left the game, deleted the cache folder, restarted, and watched the game come up ready for me to press enter for next turn. Click, crash. The system CTD'd very quickly and crisply, no sluggish disk drives whirring or sluggish recovery of Windows. I don't know what that means precisely, but it seemed like a different kind of crash.

Anyway, it is late. I'll upload the dxdiag.txt and I thank everyone for your help. This game is great - I just want to sit back and enjoy it without feeling the next keystroke will be the click of doom.

Spocko

EDIT: I loaded up the msinfo32.txt with seemingly relevant information, including error reporting (something I did not know is available through msinfo32).

 

[Spocko]

Here are the two files...

The CF server is wicked slow right now, crawling... waiting for the frame by which I can append files to CF... slowly seeing little smilies being posted to the screen when all I want to do is post my files and go to sleep... pretty little smilies... eating bandwidth...

ah. OK. Here goes.

 

[Neon Deon]

Here are the two files...

The CF server is wicked slow right now, crawling... waiting for the frame by which I can append files to CF... slowly seeing little smilies being posted to the screen when all I want to do is post my files and go to sleep... pretty little smilies... eating bandwidth...

ah. OK. Here goes.

WOW!

That set up reminds me of a tangled up fishing line.

backup your data and nuke the Hard drives.

Then pull it apart.

Take the usb pci card or cards out.
locate the wiring instructions for your front usb ports (if they are 2.0)
and install the front ports.

Verify that the MB jumper for on board sound is set to off.

Pull all your usb hub pci cards out and dont put them in.

Locate the sb card and put it in the pci slot that is the farthest from the agp port.

Leave the slot closest to the agp port empty.

Verify that the power line connected to your video card only goes to your card and no other devices. No daisey chains.

power it up and install xp. Dont let it install ati drivers just let it use vga for now.

After XP installs download the latest via 4 in 1s for your chipset not the latest one they have but the one they recommend for your chipset.

After you do that install SP2 from MS. Dont install the latest security update dealing with the graphics. Every other update should not be a problem.

Install direct x 9c from MS web site.

Download and install cat 4.12 drivers with the control center.

Install the game. Do not run it yet.

Manually install patch 1.52 from the firaxis web site dont install it thru the game.

Now run it


OR

you could do it the carefree way and remove all usb ports from the device manager, uninstall the sb card from there too. shut the machine down.

Pull the usb pci cards out, verify that the sb card is not next to the agp slot or any other pci card for that matter. If the the card is next to agp, move it farther away.

turn it on and let windows auto detect the hardware.

BTW

Shut down all startup items from msconfig and disable all NON MS services when you run the game. Your page file was still 300 plus.

 

[Spocko]

Thanks Neon Deon and blargh,
My system is running faster now than it ever has. In summary, I moved the soundcard out to the PCI slot farthest away from the AGP slot, pulled out the USB card from the PCI slot next to the AGP, removed most startups from my startup menu (keeping those I feel I need), and uninstalled/reinstalled the sound card drivers.

Civ4 is running as fast now as it would during the very first turns of gameplay (currently, medium graphics settings). And I'm playing music via Media Player. IRQ for video = 16, for sound = 19.

The only thing I didn't do (via the "Carefree" method) was properly uninstall the PCI USB card using the device manager. There were so many options of what to uninstall under my USB tab, I figured I would pull the card and see what is missing - and I see that the NEC PCI USB interface card (or something like that) is no longer on the list. So maybe just pulling the card has taken care of that. What do you think?

My MB, Asus A7V333 is a "hybrid" MB that came out just as USB 2.0 was being introduced, so it provides the means for activating additional 1.1 or 2.0 ports via a plug for 1.1 and 2.0 on the MB. RIght now, I need only 3 USB ports so I don't need to meddle with adding ports via these plugs.

You guys pointed me in the right direction. Thank you both for your time and attention. I'll post here a week from now citing the number of crashes I have with Civ4. Here's to hoping for Zero crashes and a Domination Victory.

Cheers,
Spocko

 

[Neon Deon]

Thanks Neon Deon and blargh,
My system is running faster now than it ever has. In summary, I moved the soundcard out to the PCI slot farthest away from the AGP slot, pulled out the USB card from the PCI slot next to the AGP, removed most startups from my startup menu (keeping those I feel I need), and uninstalled/reinstalled the sound card drivers.

Civ4 is running as fast now as it would during the very first turns of gameplay (currently, medium graphics settings). And I'm playing music via Media Player. IRQ for video = 16, for sound = 19.

The only thing I didn't do (via the "Carefree" method) was properly uninstall the PCI USB card using the device manager. There were so many options of what to uninstall under my USB tab, I figured I would pull the card and see what is missing - and I see that the NEC PCI USB interface card (or something like that) is no longer on the list. So maybe just pulling the card has taken care of that. What do you think?

My MB, Asus A7V333 is a "hybrid" MB that came out just as USB 2.0 was being introduced, so it provides the means for activating additional 1.1 or 2.0 ports via a plug for 1.1 and 2.0 on the MB. RIght now, I need only 3 USB ports so I don't need to meddle with adding ports via these plugs.

You guys pointed me in the right direction. Thank you both for your time and attention. I'll post here a week from now citing the number of crashes I have with Civ4. Here's to hoping for Zero crashes and a Domination Victory.

Cheers,
Spocko

Wooo hooo!

Now go kick FDR's arse

Good gamming

 

[blargh]

Here's to hoping for Zero crashes and a Domination Victory.

Hahaha good luck...

I'm still sore from nearly getting wiped off the map by barbarians on the third lowest difficulty setting... then the "civilized" world came for me.