system irq conflict

showtime

hey,

does anyone know how to iron out a seemingly random IRQ conflict that keeps popping up on my system? every now and then the system will tottally lock up and i'll have to use the manual restart button if any music or sounds are playing at the time they will loop up in the millisecond that the computer freezes on resulting in a very annoying "nnnngggggggeeeggggggggg" type of sound if you know what i mean.

system specs:
Motherboard: MSI K8N SLI Platinum, nForce4 SLI, ATX
Case: Cooler Master Centurion case Silver
PSU: Fortron/Source Powersupply ATX 400W rev2
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz Socket 939
HD: Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB SATA
Graphics:Sapphire Radeon X600PRO 128MB DDR
Optical drives: LG DVDRW Dual 16x16x4x40 GSA-4163RBB (x2)
Monitor: Hansol 19" CRT 930D TCO-99 FLAT
Memmory: Crusical PC3200 DDR-DIMM 512MB CL3 5NS (x4) = 2GB
Sound: M-Audio Delta 66 PCI

Operates windows XP Pro SP2.


any serious tech heads that might know what the problem is? its really bugging me as this is my studio computer and at the moment its unreliable. Ive checked in all the device manager parts and it says that each componet has "no conflicts"

The only reason I even know aboout IRQ conflicts is that the makers of my sound card "M-Audio" said that this might happen in the manual, they described exactly whats happening, and they advised moving the PCI card up to the next available slot, which i did , but to no avail. but still when i check on my card it says "no conflicts" any one any ideas?

roamer

Have you tried re-installing the drivers?

SouperComputer

Sounds like a driver stuck in a loop alright. Not too sure about an IRQ conflict.

Ideally rip out all drivers, IE chipset, onboard sound, AGP, graphics etc etc, get the latstest from the vendor and reinstall starting with the chipset drivers.

Although this may not solve your problem, its your 1st starting point.

Gyck

I'm assuming that the machine has onboard sound? Before taking everything out I'd start by removing the soundcard and removing its drivers and reverting to the onboard sound. If the problem has been resolved, then there's a problem with the sound card.

Of course, if the mainboard has onboard sound, you may not have disabled this in the BIOS, in which case there could be a conflict between the onboard sound and the PCI soundcard...

showtime

thanks guys, the board does have on board sound, its actually a sound blaster 7.1 on board wich i thought was unusual when i bought it but i didnt care as i was getting my nice m-audio studio card. the funny thing is that i have the computer for about a week before my soundcard came and the on board sound never worked propperly it was like really low volume when everything was turned up to the max, weird but i didnt care once i installed my m-audio card as that had great sound.

i disabled the on board sound in device manager but how would i do that in the bios? i'd assume that by doing it in device manager that it would effect bios??

secondly:

SOUPERCOMPUTER; how would i ripp put all my drivers?just put back in the original discs and there will be an option to uninstall????

all suggestions greatly appreciated thanks guys!

Gyck

i disabled the on board sound in device manager but how would i do that in the bios? i'd assume that by doing it in device manager that it would effect bios??

Just after you start your machine you will be given an option to enter the BIOS settings, it should be something like 'Press Delete to enter BIOS' or words to that effect. When you're in you have to navigate to the relevent menu or submenu for the onboard sound. It should be a simple enable/disable setting. Exit the BIOS menu, having saved your changes and the onboard sound will now no longer be picked up by the OS.

Check out the mainboard manual for details.

showtime

sound man, i'll give it a try when i go home and let you know how i got on.

i've posted this query on a few forums to date and this is the most helpfull any of them have been so far. thanks

SouperComputer

most modern machines have installer for the drivers in add\remove programs. Again, be sure to download the latest drivers first.

I was under the impression that the M-Audio card was just for recording, am I wrong?

showtime

its primary function is for recording and studio playback yes. but there is no reason that it cant be used as the default sound card when i'm not recording. in fact i use it in conjunction with the "omni I/O"

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop/flypage/product_id/802

which is a great front end peice of hardware for it, as most of my controls are right there at hand. i love these tow bits of kits to bits and i would highly recommend them to anyone who is thinking about building a bit of a budget home studio.


as regards the driver section i went to the m-audio website and i got the lastest driver and installed it. i also did what GYCK said and went into my bios and disabled the on board sound (never worked propperly anyway) i didnt realise that i'd have to do that whe i first disabled it in the device manager. and so far so good, i spent all of last night in mixdown mode between reason (rewired) and nuendo and it didnt crash once and those are two fairly "system heavy" programs on their own, especially both together.

i suppose only the test of time will tell, if it comes down to it, i'll just re-format the whole thing, ive got a 200GB maxtor external HD to back up everything with anyway.

Gyck

Sounds like you might have it sorted, hopefully you won't need to resort to nuking the drive!

showtime

i really hope so man, i'll let you know for sure over the next couple of days, its gone the odd day or two with out doing it but never any more than 4-5 days and then it seem to do it every half hour or less ecpecially when i play C&C generals!!


if it is fixed how can i ever re pay you?

Gyck

if it is fixed how can i ever re pay you?

If it works I'll get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that another problem in the world has been set to right...

showtime

sound man, but if it doesnt work, does that mean you'll have a brain hemerage or heart attack or something?

Gyck

Of course! I'm just about to explode waiting to find out what happens next!

showtime

so far so good, didnt do it last night either man