All CW apps blue screening.. I'm off

J

jthomas

New member
I need some major help. Or maybe it's something simple and stupid like always with Windows. I've been using Git Studio 2 and Guitar Tracks on Win98 relatively issue free for awhile now. I moved my harddrive to a new cpu/motherboard recently (AMD/Duron, Via KT133A, 1100mhz, 256Ram). Everything else using the sound card works fine (Dazzle Movie software, different DVD players, Musicmatch, etc. Exception: Sound Forge, see below). So I buy the Home Studio upgrade and try to set it up and get... a blue "fatal exception" screen. Uninstall/reinstall, etc, same trouble, won't even start. But not only that, ALL my Cakewalk apps are doing the same thing (blue screen). Uncertain point: I can't remember if I tried running Git Studio 2 after I moved into the new cpu/mo-board and before I installed Home Studio, but I think I did. Cakewalk tech support thought it was IRQ problem, but there are no conflicts on any of the sound/video/midi devices. They also thought the sound drivers might be corrupted, etc, but that makes no sense in relation to other indicators. The only thing that changed on that hard drive of any significance is a) I'm on a new motherboard/cpu and b) Home Studio overwrote all earlier directx with Directx8.

To date I've tried the following to remedy it, all to no avail:

- remove every trace (as far as possible) of every Cakewalk app on the drive, and reinstalling Git Studio 2 as "compact".
- remove Git Studio, try Cakewalk Express.
- remove CW Express, try Guitar Tracks.
- put in an NVIDIA Vanta vid-accel card, card installs fine, plays DVDs (all players so far, some weren't working before because of primitive vid-card).
- noticed that for some reason Sound Forge was blue-screening also, uninstalled that.

I'm ready to hang Cakewalk up, in spite of the fact that I've got a number of songs in CW projects. This is a brand new, up to date, high powered box and Cakewalk doesn't like it. Can anybody tell me what they think is wrong or another dependable music recording software? I suspect it has something to do with Directx8, but why so fickle?
Thanks,
jt
 
alright

thanks John, that's good to know. Hope I can get this fixed. A real 90 caliber mystery. I never know what to trust anymore with all this stuff...
jt
 
some random thoughts-

bluescreens most likely imply a serious hardware conflict... try using your System Information tool to see what hardware you have conflicting IRQ's with first. Chances are your soundcard is conflicting with another device. If possible move it into another slot and try again.

Or... you might have the Via chipset on your motherboard, I've seen where this causes a machine to lock up whenever accessing DX8 functions... try getting an o/s patch from somewhere like viahardware.com which can clear this particular problem up.

You mentioned that SF was also bluescreening your machine which would allude to the fact that this issue is not cakewalk-specific.
 
Do you have DirectX 8.0, or 8.0a or higher? The initial release if DirectX 8 was notoriously problematic.
 
I had a similiar problem. What I ended up doing was removing any reference to dos drivers that loaded when I installed my sound card and modem etc. It never showed any conflicts with the IRQs in my system. Most applications these days really don't have use for them. So, I got rid of them. You might want to try that.


Vice
 
bluescreen - thanks and ....

Thanks all.

Update: I called the store where I bought it (the Via board), the guy flat out told me that there are a lot of known problems with that chipset and the Via chipset, because it's too fast. His opinion was the the "audio software man'frs haven't gotten on the stick yet". I have to investigate it but the viahardware.com site looks like they're onto all this, and they are releasing patches for "latency", etc, etc. I'll let everyone know what I found out. Maybe I can guide some other poor slob through the minefield.

question to vicevursa: how do I prevent the dos drivers from loading (i.e. where/what settings, etc).

answer to AlChuck: I have the DX8 that is shipping with Home Studio right now, I don't know what it is. Cakewalk seems reticent to take up this problem with me, other than the first (irq) answer I got. Maybe they're checking with their engineers.
jt
 
I have a sound blaster sound card, and the drivers it loads say stuff like Sound Blaster Emulation. When I installed the sound card it gave me a choice if I wanted the dos drivers as well. I said yes at first, like I always do and the blue screens would pop up. I deleted/removed them from the device manager. No more blue screen. It only seemed to do that with DX8, though. I soon upgraded to DX8.0a and I haven't seen the blue screens since.

Hope this helps,
Vice
 
The thang is FIXED

Alright all, the blue screen problem with the Via board is fixed. Simply, it was the stock Via sound device that loads with all the motherboard drivers. Per Calkwalk's suggestion (2nd, I wish it had been their first), I just disabled all sound devices in the Devices list; Calkwalk ran. I just started turning them back on until it glitched and it was the Via device (unecessary as I have the Yamaha soundcard/device). Of course, all the devices showed "no conflicts". Typical b.s. Everything seems to load ok now. Thanks for suggestions, and be forwarned about Via board devices.
jt
 
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