Audio problems and disabling unused BIOS options

matt8911 · 25th Aug 2006, 11:53 AM

Hi Guys and Gals,
The problem is my audio(voice) cant be heard by most people in online games, due to my current setup. I recently reinstalled my operating system after disabling some BIOS options seeking to reassign hardware to IRQ's, using the tweaking companion 3.1 as a guide. Everything went well I have all updated drivers installed and everything is working, except for the audio communication. All applicable windows updates are installed except for the one that narrows the network definition and one more(i forgot).
Then I open the device manager to view IRQ's (in DM click view and resources by type then click on IRQ) and found that the "(PCI) 16" has four entries listed. The unusual part is the MS UAA bus driver for intel high definition audio is listed above the Nvidia Geforce 6600GT and appears to be on the same channel!!!!!!!!!! or IRQ?? So, if four devices are "sharing" an IRQ, I suspect it will degrade performance of my onboard audio, is this correct?? Can I rectify this without buying a sound card??
Note: am connected to the rear audio connections and the front audio is not connected cuz there is like 10-12 connections and I am clueless thanks for your help in advance.

**UPDATE** I found an update for UAA for High Definition Audio Version 1.0a through windows update (1.0 had problems). As for the IRQ sharing, the tweaking companion recommends moving the sound card to a different slot to change the IRQ away from other devices (like the video adapter!). News Flash I dont have a sound card!! Guess I will have to break down and buy one or just hope for a miracle. On the BIOS topic I disabled some more options like CPU enhanced halt, CPU EIST funtion, Onboard serial port 1, Onboard parallel port, i-lock and some power management settings then reinstalled a fresh copy of windows XP. I am testing now.
System Brief:GA-81945P-G mobo with a Pentium4 at 3.0 GHz
Socket:775
HD:SATAII main, SATAI storage
RAM:unbranded 512MB X 2 operating in interleaved mode
AUDIO:Intel high definition audio
VIDEO:EVGA Geforce 6600GT 128MB
GAMES:Battlefield2, Battlefield1942 demo, FEAR multiplayer demo, Far Cry and Ghost Recon.

Adrian Wong · 29th Aug 2006, 10:27 AM

Hello Matt,

Audio playback is unlikely to suffer from any performance degradation due to IRQ sharing. Do you experience any stuttering in your audio output?

If everything's fine and dandy, well, there's nothing to worry about.

But if you still would like to "change" the IRQ allocation anyway, you can try switching the cards to other slots.

Alternatively, you can enable APIC which will give your PC more IRQs to play with - http://www.techarp.com/showFreeBOG.aspx?lang=0&bogno=47

Or if your motherboard allows you to, you can manually set the IRQs for various PIRQs - http://www.techarp.com/showFreeBOG.a...ng=0&bogno=148

tradubine · 29th Aug 2006, 03:54 PM

Hello guys,

I've just purchased a nice machine, Intel Dual Core 945, P5B Asus motherboard etc...

I record music through an M-Audio Firewire 410 sound card. The soundcard and the PCI card worked fine on my old, crappy computer, but on this new machine I get constant cracking on my recordings.

Any idea what it can be? The PCI latency timer, the ASUS EN6600-TOP-Silent TD 256M video card?

An incompatibility between my Roline 1394 3-Port PCI Host Adapter and the P5B Asus motherboard?

Any help?
Thanks a lot...

eLPuSHeR · 29th Aug 2006, 05:18 PM

Hello.

You could try these hints, but one at a time:

+ Disable PCI 2.1 compliance, PCI Delayed Transaction, Enhance PCI Performance in bios. I think these are names for the same thing.

+ 32 cycles for PCI latency seems to be a good all-around value, but keep in mind that some PCI devices need more cycles to succesfully finish its transactions. PCI latency cycles must be a multiple of 8. Google for PCI LATENCY TOOL 3.x. This is a must have. It allows you to configure each PCI device latency independently. This is due to graphic cards manufacturers tend to change AGP cards latency all the way up in their drivers (both nVIDIA and ATi do this) and you end up with insane high latencies for the video card, which hog the bus. Adjust AGP latency for a lower value, but AGP possibly needs a latency at least 64 cycles, although my nFORCE2 chipset can do fine with an AGP latency as low as 32, although I do not feel comfortable with it. My video card has 90 cycles latency. All remaining PCI devices seem to be working nicely with 32 or more cycles (my bios default), although I have established the PCI latency in bios to be 48 (the mean between 32 and 64).

+ System bios cacheable, Video bios cacheable should be always disabled.

+ You should also try disabling Byte Merge (ALI) or Dynamic Bursting (VIA).

Good luck. Any disabled setting found of no relevance should be re-enabled again, as they usually boost performance. Your mileage may vary.

matt8911 · 3rd Sep 2006, 11:50 PM

Hi Adrian,
First, I cannot switch the PCI express graphics card as I have only one slot. Next, I have (Intel?)High definition Audio on the Mobo this is having the problems. I do not have a (current) sound card to switch slots (bought an ancient sound card from a buddy for 5dollars I could try it??) I may try the sound card if other helps do not work( may have to reinstall windows with the correct UAA driver installed from the get go) this is one fix from KB alerts.com.

Stuttering in audio output?...well all I know is listening to music through headphones is clear as well as on speakers.
Are there any tests I can perform, for the mic and playing recorded sounds, so I can fully answer your question?? Only been tinkering with computers for 3 years(newbie). I have been trying out several tricks from the Kb alerts website. In the volume properties box I put a check mark next to "pink wire IN" this gives me a volume control box for my mic complete with a mic boost control. The down side is when I test my Mic with the hardware test wizard an error code somes up at the end "an error occured during Direct play voice setup, the error code is 0x80004005". clicking out of that gets another message "windows cannot execute DpvSetup.exe use add/remove programs panel to install". The formal fixes for this problem do not work for a lot of people according to the Kb alerts audience reply section.
One person(mike) said to use task manager to kill one of the dpvsetup.exe processes at the end when one dpvsetup.exe processes dissapears then the mic tests proceed normally. Another said to edit the registry which may be the fix, however I need to read further to verify his sources.

Also what does the onboard serial port do anyway?? I turned it on in the bios again thinking that was the problem.

Summing up I think I need to reinstall the os with the current UAA drivers from the get go in order to eliminate the headaches that I am experiencing now cuz the remnants of the first UAA driver may be screwing me up(two dpvsetup.exe processes running at a time??) thanks for all your help Adrian bye now...

25th Aug 2006, 11:53 AM	#1 (permalink)
matt8911 Newbie Join Date: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 2 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Audio problems and disabling unused BIOS options Hi Guys and Gals, The problem is my audio(voice) cant be heard by most people in online games, due to my current setup. I recently reinstalled my operating system after disabling some BIOS options seeking to reassign hardware to IRQ's, using the tweaking companion 3.1 as a guide. Everything went well I have all updated drivers installed and everything is working, except for the audio communication. All applicable windows updates are installed except for the one that narrows the network definition and one more(i forgot). Then I open the device manager to view IRQ's (in DM click view and resources by type then click on IRQ) and found that the "(PCI) 16" has four entries listed. The unusual part is the MS UAA bus driver for intel high definition audio is listed above the Nvidia Geforce 6600GT and appears to be on the same channel!!!!!!!!!! or IRQ?? So, if four devices are "sharing" an IRQ, I suspect it will degrade performance of my onboard audio, is this correct?? Can I rectify this without buying a sound card?? Note: am connected to the rear audio connections and the front audio is not connected cuz there is like 10-12 connections and I am clueless thanks for your help in advance. UPDATE I found an update for UAA for High Definition Audio Version 1.0a through windows update (1.0 had problems). As for the IRQ sharing, the tweaking companion recommends moving the sound card to a different slot to change the IRQ away from other devices (like the video adapter!). News Flash I dont have a sound card!! Guess I will have to break down and buy one or just hope for a miracle. On the BIOS topic I disabled some more options like CPU enhanced halt, CPU EIST funtion, Onboard serial port 1, Onboard parallel port, i-lock and some power management settings then reinstalled a fresh copy of windows XP. I am testing now. System Brief:GA-81945P-G mobo with a Pentium4 at 3.0 GHz Socket:775 HD:SATAII main, SATAI storage RAM:unbranded 512MB X 2 operating in interleaved mode AUDIO:Intel high definition audio VIDEO:EVGA Geforce 6600GT 128MB GAMES:Battlefield2, Battlefield1942 demo, FEAR multiplayer demo, Far Cry and Ghost Recon. Last edited by matt8911 : 28th Aug 2006 at 10:19 AM. Reason: new information

29th Aug 2006, 10:27 AM	#2 (permalink)
Adrian Wong Da Boss Join Date: 10 Oct 2002 Location: In front of my ASUS F8V notebook! Posts: 30,382 Reputation: 3147 Rep Power: 68	Hello Matt, Audio playback is unlikely to suffer from any performance degradation due to IRQ sharing. Do you experience any stuttering in your audio output? If everything's fine and dandy, well, there's nothing to worry about. But if you still would like to "change" the IRQ allocation anyway, you can try switching the cards to other slots. Alternatively, you can enable APIC which will give your PC more IRQs to play with - http://www.techarp.com/showFreeBOG.aspx?lang=0&bogno=47 Or if your motherboard allows you to, you can manually set the IRQs for various PIRQs - http://www.techarp.com/showFreeBOG.a...ng=0&bogno=148 __________________ Dr. Adrian Wong Tech ARP \| Blog @ Tech ARP \| The Free Trade Zone DYKT : The only offshore account I have is at the sand bank? We need PROGRAMMERS and TECHNICAL WRITERS! Contact us if you are a hot shot programmer or technical writer! My items for sale : 50x SD Card \| Memory Stick PRO \| Cyclone Energy Saver \| Seiko SS watch \| Tiger/Carlsberg beer jugs \| Travel Speakers \| Motorola V600 \| Nokia N90 SOLD! \| New Lowepro Mini Trekker AW Other items for sale @ the FTZ : Zalman CNPS9500 LED @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7700 Cu @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7000 Cu @ $20 \| Swarovski bracelet watches \| Dell 17" LCD \| Hi-Fi speakers \| English DIVX movies \| HP LaserJet toners! \| Office chairs

29th Aug 2006, 03:54 PM	#3 (permalink)
tradubine Newbie Join Date: 29 Aug 2006 Posts: 1 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	pci card P5B Asus motherboard recording problem need help Hello guys, I've just purchased a nice machine, Intel Dual Core 945, P5B Asus motherboard etc... I record music through an M-Audio Firewire 410 sound card. The soundcard and the PCI card worked fine on my old, crappy computer, but on this new machine I get constant cracking on my recordings. Any idea what it can be? The PCI latency timer, the ASUS EN6600-TOP-Silent TD 256M video card? An incompatibility between my Roline 1394 3-Port PCI Host Adapter and the P5B Asus motherboard? Any help? Thanks a lot...

29th Aug 2006, 05:18 PM	#4 (permalink)
eLPuSHeR Warming up Join Date: 7 Sep 2004 Posts: 89 Reputation: 18 Rep Power: 0	Hello. You could try these hints, but one at a time: + Disable PCI 2.1 compliance, PCI Delayed Transaction, Enhance PCI Performance in bios. I think these are names for the same thing. + 32 cycles for PCI latency seems to be a good all-around value, but keep in mind that some PCI devices need more cycles to succesfully finish its transactions. PCI latency cycles must be a multiple of 8. Google for PCI LATENCY TOOL 3.x. This is a must have. It allows you to configure each PCI device latency independently. This is due to graphic cards manufacturers tend to change AGP cards latency all the way up in their drivers (both nVIDIA and ATi do this) and you end up with insane high latencies for the video card, which hog the bus. Adjust AGP latency for a lower value, but AGP possibly needs a latency at least 64 cycles, although my nFORCE2 chipset can do fine with an AGP latency as low as 32, although I do not feel comfortable with it. My video card has 90 cycles latency. All remaining PCI devices seem to be working nicely with 32 or more cycles (my bios default), although I have established the PCI latency in bios to be 48 (the mean between 32 and 64). + System bios cacheable, Video bios cacheable should be always disabled. + You should also try disabling Byte Merge (ALI) or Dynamic Bursting (VIA). Good luck. Any disabled setting found of no relevance should be re-enabled again, as they usually boost performance. Your mileage may vary. __________________ AMD Sempron 3000+ ABIT NF7 2.0 (nForce2 Ultra 400) 1GB 266Mhz DDR SDRAM WinXP Prof. SP2 ATi Radeon X800GTO AGP (256MB) SoundBlaster Audigy 2 SE

3rd Sep 2006, 11:50 PM	#5 (permalink)
matt8911 Newbie Join Date: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 2 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Hi Adrian, First, I cannot switch the PCI express graphics card as I have only one slot. Next, I have (Intel?)High definition Audio on the Mobo this is having the problems. I do not have a (current) sound card to switch slots (bought an ancient sound card from a buddy for 5dollars I could try it??) I may try the sound card if other helps do not work( may have to reinstall windows with the correct UAA driver installed from the get go) this is one fix from KB alerts.com. Stuttering in audio output?...well all I know is listening to music through headphones is clear as well as on speakers. Are there any tests I can perform, for the mic and playing recorded sounds, so I can fully answer your question?? Only been tinkering with computers for 3 years(newbie). I have been trying out several tricks from the Kb alerts website. In the volume properties box I put a check mark next to "pink wire IN" this gives me a volume control box for my mic complete with a mic boost control. The down side is when I test my Mic with the hardware test wizard an error code somes up at the end "an error occured during Direct play voice setup, the error code is 0x80004005". clicking out of that gets another message "windows cannot execute DpvSetup.exe use add/remove programs panel to install". The formal fixes for this problem do not work for a lot of people according to the Kb alerts audience reply section. One person(mike) said to use task manager to kill one of the dpvsetup.exe processes at the end when one dpvsetup.exe processes dissapears then the mic tests proceed normally. Another said to edit the registry which may be the fix, however I need to read further to verify his sources. Also what does the onboard serial port do anyway?? I turned it on in the bios again thinking that was the problem. Summing up I think I need to reinstall the os with the current UAA drivers from the get go in order to eliminate the headaches that I am experiencing now cuz the remnants of the first UAA driver may be screwing me up(two dpvsetup.exe processes running at a time??) thanks for all your help Adrian bye now...