5 or 7 were supported by pretty much everything I think, in the 486 era most games supported 11 too.

However, your motherboard might grab 5 for ECP/EPP mode on the parallel port, so you might need to change that to standard in setup, OR if you need that mode for scanner, backpack CD, zip drive or something, use 7.

I tried changing it to 5 in autoexec but when it's executed it still sets itself to 10 and then changes it in the file
lpt extended is in standard however it seems to use irq 7

Hi darkwarrior,
The Blaster setting in autoexec.bat is just a variable.
It is meant as an aid for games, so they can find out the Sound Blaster's config more easily.
What you can try to do is to run CTCU and change the configuration to "Configuration No.2" or similar.
I can't remember alll of the details now, but I posted this in another, earlier thread already.
Re: Zone 66 crashes on start?

Wrong forum. Ask in Marvin, this is for DOS games on modern systems.

General Old Hardware

Moved.

JO22 The ctcu doesn't really give me an option it just said successfully set at irq10, anyway irq5 seems to be used by my cd drive because I had it on irq5 for while didn't change a thing though, since this card seems to be mostly compatible with later dos games like doom2 and duke3d

anyway I got rid of that card and I got the ct1600, now sound works just fine, but the whole system freezes after a while, not sure why, shouldn't be a driver problem since sound is playing fine. I have set it to irq7 and I disabled lpt in bios. How do you check in dos if irqs are conflicting?

For future reference, the easiest way to change the I/O, DMA, and IRQ ports on the AWE64 cards that I have found is to do it through Windows Device Manager.

Is there an easier way?

See if you can change the IRQ setting so that your CD Drive uses IRQ10. You should then be able to assign IRQ5 to your sound card.
You can run Microsoft Diagnostics (MSD.EXE) that shipped with MS-DOS 6 to see which resources are being used.
Alternatively, you can try a utility called Navrátil Software System Information (NSSI) - http://www.navsoft.cz/products.htm

cyclone3d wrote:

For future reference, the easiest way to change the I/O, DMA, and IRQ ports on the AWE64 cards that I have found is to do it through Windows Device Manager.

Is there an easier way?

If you are running under pure DOS (i.e., not the Windows 9x DOS 7 but, DOS 5 or DOS 6), then you will require a PnP utility to change your resource settings - the one that shipped with Creative cards was called CTCU.
This is only for PnP cards - older cards' settings were changed either via jumpers on the card or a combination of jumpers & software settings (via the Diagnose utility).
However, you then need to know what resources are being used by your system. Otherwise, you just end up with conflicts and lock ups.
Under Windows, these can changed under the Device Manager. If you are running in a Windows 9x environment, then your Windows settings are saved in a file called CTPNP.CFG under your Windows folder which CTCM will then "read" when you re-boot into "real mode" DOS (in other words, DOS 7 then "follows" the same settings as what you have under Windows).

BitWrangler wrote:

5 or 7 were supported by pretty much everything I think, in the 486 era most games supported 11 too.
However, your motherboard might grab 5 for ECP/EPP mode on the parallel port

IRQ 5 is usually the most-free port; 7 is for LPT1, which can use EPP or ECP. If the printer port is using ECP, then that adds use of a DMA channel, usually 1 or 3.

darkwarrior wrote:

JO22 The ctcu doesn't really give me an option it just said successfully set at irq10, anyway irq5 seems to be used by my cd drive because I had it on irq5 for while didn't change a thing though, since this card seems to be mostly compatible with later dos games like doom2 and duke3d

A DVD DRIVE using IRQ5 would be weird; IDE controllers usually use one of IRQ 14, 15, 11, or 10. Do you have an ISA DVD decoder card?

anyway I got rid of that card and I got the ct1600, now sound works just fine, but the whole system freezes after a while, not sure why, shouldn't be a driver problem since sound is playing fine. I have set it to irq7 and I disabled lpt in bios. How do you check in dos if irqs are conflicting?

Check all your non-PnP cards' jumpers, and if you have other PnP cards make sure you have only one PNP manager, like Creative's CTCM/CTCU or a USRobotics' own configuration utility whose name escapes me.

IRQs aren't the only issue; DMA can be one (but often that results in NMIs or reboots).

AlaricD wrote:

IRQ 5 is usually the most-free port; 7 is for LPT1, which can use EPP or ECP. If the printer port is using ECP, then that adds use of a DMA channel, usually 1 or 3.

Yeah I have disabled lpt in bios, there is disable option in my bios.

AlaricD wrote:

A DVD DRIVE using IRQ5 would be weird; IDE controllers usually use one of IRQ 14, 15, 11, or 10. Do you have an ISA DVD decoder card?

No It's just a regular CD-ROM drive from the era, for some reason whenever I use IRQ5 MSCDEX no longer finds the drive. On the ct4520: as soon as I plugged the cd audio cable to the card, MSCDEX would no longer be detected and the sound card wouldn't work either(it was on irq10), but audio cd would play on the speakers, that means the cable itself worked. I only have the isa nic and sound board, graphics are pci and there is ide to cf instead the vintage hdd of course.

Check all your non-PnP cards' jumpers, and if you have other PnP cards make sure you have only one PNP manager, like Creative's CTCM/CTCU or a USRobotics' own configuration utility whose name escapes me.

IRQs aren't the only issue; DMA can be one (but often that results in NMIs or reboots).

Yeah dma number is set to 1, I installed the driver and I was able to play nukem2 for a while now (used to freeze as soon as game started) I also played keen6 and kdreams no freezes there either, whenever the driver resolved the problem or I'm just lucky, I don't know.

This card is sure noisy, makes all kinds of whirling and hissing noises, most noticable when it's not playing anything and it's supposed to be quiet, awe64 did the same, but when I turned the volume down, it stopped, but here it's still pretty audible with volume wheel set to low. Is that just my card or anyone else using ct1600 has the same issue?

The noise could be from a dodgy or poor quality power supply or from capacitors on the motherboard or the sound card itself needing to be replaced.

The AWE64 value cards (anything besides CT4390 or CT4540) have a little bit of noise. The Gold versions seem to have a pretty clean output.

Mind you this is with a newer ATX power supply that has great voltage regulation and minimal ripple.

Well I also have a pentium mmx with few isa slots, it's in the storage room, I will try the card in that, it has noticeably bulky caps though

If it's power Issue I could measure it, do you know which pins on isa slot should I measure?

Also the background noise is not constant and it varies sorta depends on what is displayed on screen, it's almost like it's coming from monitor but it's not, I wonder what could possibly cause that?

darkwarrior wrote:

Well I also have a pentium mmx with few isa slots, it's in the storage room, I will try the card in that, it has noticeably bulky caps though

If it's power Issue I could measure it, do you know which pins on isa slot should I measure?

Also the background noise is not constant and it varies sorta depends on what is displayed on screen, it's almost like it's coming from monitor but it's not, I wonder what could possibly cause that?

Sounds to me like the motherboard needs to be recapped. If you are getting interference/noise that changes depending on what is on the screen, you have some seriously bad voltage ripple which is not good for parts longevity at all.

Could also be the power supply. What exact power supply are you using?

You can't measure ripple with a multimeter, but the voltage could be off as well.

I won't run boards with bulging capacitors. Not worth it even if it seems stable for the most part. They are there for a reason.

I have turned the volume on soundboard all the way up and turned the speakers down, now that noise is basically inaudible unless I turn the volume knob on speakers past the half, so that volume wheel on the sound board only lowers the audio output, but not noise that is on the port, it's almost like it's a grounding issue.

The bulging caps are in the other computer I mentioned, not this 486. I will recap the mobo, these caps are old either way and I see if that helps.

Well, it could be the speakers as well.

Do you get noise if you use headphones?

What about a different/newer/better set of speakers?

darkwarrior wrote:

No It's just a regular CD-ROM drive from the era, for some reason whenever I use IRQ5 MSCDEX no longer finds the drive.

MSCDEX.EXE isn't a CD-ROM driver (it's not what is "finding the drive"), it's a network redirector which relies on a CD-ROM driver to initially find the drive. If MSCDEX.EXE can't assign the CD-ROM drive a letter, it's because the CD-ROM driver can't detect the drive. What CD-ROM drive, and what CD-ROM driver? What is the data cable connected to? If it's a parallel port drive, then using IRQ5 (for LPT2) might make sense.

Yeah dma number is set to 1, I installed the driver and I was able to play nukem2 for a while now (used to freeze as soon as game started) I also played keen6 and kdreams no freezes there either, whenever the driver resolved the problem or I'm just lucky, I don't know.

This card is sure noisy, makes all kinds of whirling and hissing noises, most noticable when it's not playing anything and it's supposed to be quiet, awe64 did the same, but when I turned the volume down, it stopped, but here it's still pretty audible with volume wheel set to low. Is that just my card or anyone else using ct1600 has the same issue?

The CT1600's not going to win awards for the 'amp' on it. It could just be picking up noise from other things in the case, or it's just aging and capacitors are going bad.