Dropout and IRQs I can't change. Help

[iwantmypie]

So I posted about my problems of getting my Firewire Audiophile to work on my laptop and I never got much help. My laptop DOES NOT have an integrated Firewire port and that is why I must purchase a PCMCIA card. After using many NEC and VIA chipset firewire cards, I got one of the recommended cards on M-Audio's website. It has a TI Chipset in it. Thinking everything would work out fine, it didn't. But for the first time, I can hear audio playback, but only for 10 seconds. I'm talking about just playing a little mp3 file and the audio will dropout only after 10 seconds. It's rediculous. Anyway here are my specs

HP Pavillion Notebook ze4805US
AMD Athlon XP2800+ 2.12 GHz
512MB RAM
Windows XP Professional SP2
Cardbus Chipset is TI
Firewire Card is VIA

Now I have heard of IRQ conflicts and I looked into this and this might be the problem. The PCMCIA cardbus and the Firewire card are both on IRQ 11 AS WELL AS my ethernet adapter. I've tried to disable my internet for the time being its impossible for me to do. Then when I enabled the ethernet back, it moved to IRQ 7. It was still working the same so I tried to restart my computer but it went back to 11. I need to know of some way to possilby be able to change the IRQ of the device. Keep in mind I have a laptop and I don't have 4 different PCI slots to try out before I find no conflict. This problem is really starting to get annoying. I just want to play music. I don't even care about recording 20 tracks at a time, I just want to use my Winamp in peace.

 

[iwantmypie]

*can i get a bump*

 

[Jim Y]

IRQ sharing is not something you should have to worry about. It's a fact of computing life. The problem might lie in something else - DMA, this is what actually carries out most data transfers in a modern pc.
I would guess either the Network controller or Graphics chip are taking too long to do their bit and the audio is missing out. The only control over this is something called "pci latency timer" which acts for most devices - not only pci - the exception being pci-e (express) which has no timer control.

Utilitie programs do exist that allow you to force the timing, there is no control for this either in Windows and the one (if it exists) in the machines BIOS setup gets overridden by the device drivers anyway. For example, a USB or Firewire controller should be happy with a timing of 32 (being the number of pci bus clock cycles) while many graphics chips take 248 or 255! Many find the graphics works just fine (even with games) at 64 and cures the audio dropouts. A network controller should be fine on 32.

Here's such a tool. It's free and should download from here...
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/PCI_Latency_Tool/1105467085/1

 

[iwantmypie]

Thank you very much! I am at work right now so I can't check but I will the second I get home. This definatly seems like it could be the problem.

 

[Minion]

I had a simular problem a while ago trying to get my 6600GT Vid Card to work with my Delta 44 as they were shareing IRQ"s and no matter what I did I couldn"t change the IRQ settings so i could get a Seperate IRQ for each device...after quite a while of not getting anywere with this Problem I ended up trying to Reformat and reinstall windows then Windows reassigned all of mt IRQ"s and suddenly everything worked like it should.....

It sure Pissed me off that I had to do this to get the 2 cras to work together but at least it worked....


Good Luck

 

[axeman_ukl]

the number on the audio cards should it be high or low my audio cards were 32 and everything else was 0 ?

 

[iwantmypie]

Yes!!!!!!!

JIM Y YOU ARE GOD!!! Sure enough there was a latency of 255 on my video card and 0 on both the Cardbus and Firewire card. IT WORKS PERFECTLY!! I can't thank you enough!! BOOYA!!!!

 

[Jim Y]

Excellent!

32 is normal for most devices. I think 0 either means it's the default set by the motherboard bios which is usually 32 (not many BIOS setups let you see or modify this) or a latency timer is not relevant for them.

The Matrox AGP video cards which are popular for custom built DAW PC's, set themselves a latency of 64. Probably explains why they're popular.

Some more reading...
http://www.mark-knutson.com/t3/
Mark wrote his own program to handle the problem although PCILatencyTool and Powerstrip already existed. I have Mark to thank for bringing this issue to my attention.

Cheers.

 

[sync]

IRQ sharing is not something you should have to worry about. It's a fact of computing life. The problem might lie in something else - DMA, this is what actually carries out most data transfers in a modern pc.

Does that mean there is no such thing as IRQ conflicts?

M-Audio is blaming a problem I'm having with my Firewire 410 on IRQ conflicts.