SB Live! locking up my system.

[timwhit]

I have had this SB Live! in my system for about 2.5 years now. I recently changed motherboards from an Asus P3V4X to an Asus A7V333. Both boards have Via chipsets. This is the first time that I have run into problems.

The problem is weird. When a sound is played the whole system will lock tight. But this doesn't happen every time a sound is played. I was listening to MP3s the other night for several hours, and then I tried to change position in the song and the computer locked. It has locked using Winamp, Windows Media Player, and while testing the sound with Dxdiag. This is all under Win2k.

I am downloading the drivers for the card now, but I think I already have these drivers installed. I never really paid much attention to people having problems with Via+Live! So I have no idea how to fix this one.

Any info is appreciated.

[time]

First it kills horses, now it turns such a troublefree sound card into an SB Dead! :mrgrn:

Sorry about that ...

Surely sounds like a conflict. Try another PCI slot (or two). Resetting ESCD info in the BIOS might help, as might checking whether or not you've set PnP OS. (These are low success rate solutions, but you never know).

Of course, the best advice is to place the card carefully on the floor and jump on it a few times. Then sell it on Ebay.

Don't ask Tannin about card compatibility in Asus motherboards, or your ears will burn. It's another possibility to consider, unfortunately.

[timwhit]

Thanks for the reply, but I think I already figured it out.

I forgot that this motherboard has onboard sound and I never disabled it when I put the system together. You can't disable it in the bios you have to set a jumper. How dumb is that?

[Jake the Dog]

i think time is on the right track.

i've had an issues with SB lives in the past and nearly always the problem was caused by resource confilcts. most often the solution that worked the best was to remove all the drivers and then the device from the dev/mgr. reboot into the BIOS, force IRQ 5 to the slot that the SB sits in and make sure nothing else is getting IRQ 5. you might want to disable PnP O/S as well, again as time suggested. make you refresh the the ESCD table too.

good luck!

[Jake the Dog]

doh! tim posted his reply whilst i was typing mine.

another tim.

[time]

You can't disable it in the bios you have to set a jumper. How dumb is that?
That's pretty bad, actually. An all too frequent scenario is that the board is used in a computer with the embedded sound (or video, comms etc), then one to two years later the current owner tries to add a sound (etc) card, and needs to hunt down doco to do it. And like you, it probably won't occur to them that there even is a jumper. :evil:

[Bartender]

Good find Tim. I just checked that same Asus board in Buck's inventory, and sure enough, they don't disable sound through the BIOS. You should've bought a Soltek - Buck can sell you one! :D

[Buck]

Bartender! I only have SL-75DRV-4 boards, no SL-75DRV-5 boards. Unless, of course, Tim would like a VIA 266a based board instead. I should stock up on some SL-75DRV-5 boards, they are just so expensive.

[Bartender]

Nice Avatar Tim.

[timwhit]

Thanks Buck.

I got the Asus board because of all the cool extra features it has. Plus, it got pretty good reviews. It has 4 USB2.0 ports, firewire, crappy Promise RAID. I'm not using any of the addons right now, but I will be hooking up a Digital8 camcorder sometime in the future which should be cool. My last Asus board (P3V4X) was rock solid for 2 years and now it is still working great for my mom's computer. Never crashed, ever and seemed fast enough to me.

Does the Soltek have all that crap???

[time]

I don't think Soltek makes any RAID boards, which is hardly likely to make many people shed tears.

What is disappointing is that they still haven't embraced Firewire or USB 2.0 either. You do get 6 USB ports, however (the website spec mistakenly claims only 4). On the other hand, I can pick up a combined USB 2.0 / Firewire card for about US$40, which is way, way, way less than the price difference here between the Soltek DRV5 and the Asus A7V333.

The DRV5 also incorporates protection based on the Athlon's thermal diode, just like the Asus. I think the Epox 8K3A has it tacked on, but that whole motherboard is a work in progress. :(

The thing about Soltek boards is, they seem to give the least problems of any brand. Which is why Buck and Tannin rave about them. I suspect it's due to superior BIOS programming. And of course they come with the best software bundle.

And for Sandra freaks, the DRV5 is still, to the best of my knowledge, the leader in measured memory throughput. :roll:

[Buck]

And for Sandra freaks, the DRV5 is still, to the best of my knowledge, the leader in measured memory throughput. :roll:

Your knowledge servers you well Time. I think it was amdmb.com that showed the DRV-5 coming out ahead of all other KT333 solutions with their assault of benchmarks.

[Sol]

I just got one of the Soltek DRV5 (Whatever) boards.
Apart from the CPU voltage and the onboard sound, pretty much everything is done in jumpers.

Well O.K not quite, but clock speed, Ram speed (dip switches) and Ram and AGP voltage (jumpers) as well as a few other things I'd list except that Tannin still has the manual.

Nice boards though. I think Asus' problem is that they want to do everything them selves and so have to write thier own Bios rather than just modify a standard one.

[Bartender]

...except that Tannin still has the manual.

What! He should be able to pull the manual out of another box instead of holding on to yours. :D

[Pradeep]

Of course the simplest solution to SB problems is to throw it in the nearest trash receptacle.

[time]

I just got one of the Soltek DRV5 (Whatever) boards.
Apart from the CPU voltage and the onboard sound, pretty much everything is done in jumpers.

Well O.K not quite, but clock speed, Ram speed (dip switches) and Ram and AGP voltage (jumpers) as well as a few other things I'd list except that Tannin still has the manual.
Most of these can also be set in the BIOS, Sol. Be grateful you have the hard-wired settings to fall back on!

CPU clock and voltage are set under Frequency/Voltage Control. That's what 'Red Storm' is all about. RAM speed (not sure about voltage) is set under Advanced Chipset Features - DRAM Clock/Drive Control.