VOGONS


First post, by Malik

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I have faced this peculiar problem using 2 different motherboards when installing an AWE64/AWE32 (both PnP cards).
One mobo was a P5F72 with intel 82430VX chipset, Socket 7 and another Slot 1 440BX based mobo.

The symptoms:

After inserting an AWE32 or AWE64 card, when I boot the system:

Either

1.) POST shows a floppy drive error (usually error 40).

or

2.) Keyboard not found error.

Please be aware that you can eliminate the possibilities of incorrect or incomplete hardware installations, (for eg. : not fully inserted scenario).

When I remove the PnP cards, sometimes no problems but sometimes, the problem persists.

I have also connected the SC-55 Mk-II via the midi-joystick cable to my AWE32. The power supply to the MK-II is as per the requirement.

I once noticed a whole system shutdown when I connected the midi-joystick cable to my LAPC-I with the MK-II. The MK-II was off at that time.
Then I dare not connect anything to my LAPC-I, lest I incur some short-circuit somewhere..
What gives?

Any solutions much appreciated. Thanks!

Last edited by Malik on 2008-12-18, 04:59. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 7, by Malik

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Hmmm..the batteries are brand new. As for the board, hmmm...I noticed this problem after I started using the MK-II connected to the AWE cards via the joystick-midi cable. I have two of them, I tried changing this cable but the problem persists. The recurrence of this problem appeared after an incident of connecting the MK-II.

And I must also point out that as I have mentioned previously, when I connected the midi cable to the LAPC-I, the system went kaput, as soon as the midi cable just come in contact with the port.
I had to remove the midi cable from the LAPC-I's midi port to power-on the system. Otherwise, even the power button couldn't bring the system back online as long as the midi cable is still connected to it. Am I shorting something somewhere?

As for the power supply, I'll try changing it. Thanks.

Reply 3 of 7, by Silent Loon

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Strange behaviour indeed. Where do you have the midi/joystick cables from? Do they have optocouplers?
Found this on terratecs "legacy" ftp /faq for Maestro 16/96 concerning problems with a midi keyboard:

Experience has shown that there's an enormous number of different MIDI connector cables which unfortunately are all identical externally. These cables should contain a so-called optocoupler suitable for the sound card's levels. As it's not possible to check this from the outside, always use the sound card manufacturer's MIDI cable.

I don't know exactly what those optocouplers do, but if you do a little google research you'l find many articles mentioning them as prevention from short circuit.

Does the LAPC-I not need a special Roland midi conncector (MBC-1)?

Reply 4 of 7, by Malik

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Moogle! wrote:

I suspect your boards and/or power supplies are failing.

UPDATE: I've changed my PSU to a slightly higher 550W CoolerMaster from a 450 Generic PSU. And now the problem is no more! Thanks for the suggestion, Moogle!. I never thought a 450W might be struggling with one of my classic system. Then, again, could be due to the "Generic" PSU.

Silent Loon wrote:

Strange behaviour indeed. Where do you have the midi/joystick cables from? Do they have optocouplers?
Found this on terratecs "legacy" ftp /faq for Maestro 16/96 concerning problems with a midi keyboard:

I've got one midi-joystick cable which came with my retail SBAWE64 Gold-Emu Creation Studio package. Another was supplied by the seller whom I got the MK-II from.
Anyway, the optocouplers is a new thing to me. I'll keep this in mind if I come across some similar problems. Thanks!

I hope anyone else having similar weird problems will take note of all these..

Reply 7 of 7, by Malik

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Moogle! wrote:

Probably because the caps in the PSU are failing and it is no longer putting out the power rating on the lable.

I agree. Weird problems due to trivial causes.

dh4rm4 wrote:

The one from the Gold pack is likely to be the better cable as it's the same one Creative bundle with their E-MU AWE Studio cards.

Yes. It's brand new. The pins are still shining clean! 😀