VOGONS


First post, by Peter z80.eu

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My SOYO SY-5EAS ran with a PCI ATI XPERT 98 and an ISA Soundblaster 32 PnP smoothly, with DOS and with Windows 98 (the CPU is an AMD K6-2/400).
I was using the ISA Configuration Utility (ICU) for initializing the PnP card (did run well, too, no error messages, no freeze).

I had also a PCI ATI All-in-Wonder 128 Pro, but I didn't used it so far.
Now I had the idea to exchange the video card, I configured Windows 98 back to Standard VGA, plugged the XPERT 98 (= Rage Pro) and inserted the ATI All-in-Wonder (= Rage 128).
After the BIOS messages was shown, the ICU program freezes, so I had to remove it from my CONFIG.SYS file.

Windows 98 still started and I was able to hear even sound. But with DOS, no sound at all. The Windows driver package for the ATI AIW was installed without errors.
So I decided to exchange also the SB 32 PnP with a more simple card, a CT4180 Soundblaster Vibra 16 (it's also an ISA PnP card).

ICU wasn't still working, and now Windows 98 was not producing sound anymore, too.
I was looking for CTCM (ctcmbbs), CTCU and DIAGNOSE, found it, and tried it.
And it worked - but only one time, then it does not show anymore that the soundcard is found.
CTCM now does not find anything, shows no message. DIAGNOSE says there is nothing at Port 220 existing.

In the BIOS, I was checking the PnP settings, but it is in "AUTO" mode, you cannot set anything there except "Reset config values", but this does not help too.

I am still suspecting this complex ATI All-in-Wonder card, because the disaster started with the exchange of the video card.
But I have NO clue what to do now, except to throw the ATI AIW back to the shelf and inserting the ATI XPERT 98 again.
Really liked to use the AIW card, but it seems it's a card from the hell...

Reply 1 of 7, by Horun

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Hmm me thinks it a driver issue, The All-in-Wonder used diff chipset and had TV Tuner AND diff driver iirc which means multi IRQ's...
You need to fully uninstall the drivers to ATI 98 and not just set the Windows video to VGA.
I learned to hate ATI cards back in the day because of driver issues. May not be the reason for your problem but something between the BIOS, drivers and Video card is the issue.

Go back to the ATI Pro and see what happens.....

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 2 of 7, by Peter z80.eu

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Horun wrote on 2022-01-30, 05:49:
Hmm me thinks it a driver issue, The All-in-Wonder used diff chipset and had TV Tuner AND diff driver iirc which means multi IRQ […]
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Hmm me thinks it a driver issue, The All-in-Wonder used diff chipset and had TV Tuner AND diff driver iirc which means multi IRQ's...
You need to fully uninstall the drivers to ATI 98 and not just set the Windows video to VGA.
I learned to hate ATI cards back in the day because of driver issues. May not be the reason for your problem but something between the BIOS, drivers and Video card is the issue.

Go back to the ATI Pro and see what happens.....

No driver issue. As already described, I switched back to Standard VGA (before I changed the video card), then I inserted the AIW, and then I installed the correct AIW drivers (without issues related to the video card).
Also, the CTCM (and before that, the ICU) PnP software did not recognized the sound card - before Windows was started....

Reply 3 of 7, by stamasd

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I think it's a resource conflict, likely IRQ. Can you check that using msd.exe?

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 4 of 7, by Horun

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Yeah I misread. Think it a resource conflict with the TV tuner/capture part of the A-I-W.
Try MSD without a sound card and with the A-I-W installed and check the IRQ's in use. You might have to disable the LPT port or a COM port if no low IRQ's are available for the sound card.....

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 5 of 7, by Peter z80.eu

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Meanwhile I've replaced the SB16 Vibra with a SB PCI 64. My Idiot-PC BIOS assigns always IRQ 9 at boot time. And I can't change it. Seems to be a fault of the mainboard, I was setting the IRQ settings to manual and all of the available entries were set to PCI, also because I have no ISA card in the system. I guess I have to buy another mainboard. Then I tried also to set at least IRQ 5 back to ISA PnP. Did not help, too.

Reply 6 of 7, by Peter z80.eu

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Figured out later: I disabled USB Port (did not used it on this board) and also the 2nd serial port. Now I can see IRQ 5 is assigned, but this time ctcm shows a "ERROR: Bad Resource data checksum" two times, then exit without success.
This is absolutely weird.

Reply 7 of 7, by Peter z80.eu

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Finally I gave up. I removed this shitty ATI All-in-Wonder 128 Pro card and re-inserted my ATI Xpert 98 (Rage Pro) card.
Guess what happened... the sound card immediately worked. So I will sell this card, not compatible with my PC/mainboard/whatsoever.