I'm having the same exact issue! Same cards, with the exception that my awe64 is a value.
Unisound and Windows can configure the awe64 without conflicts, but the damn thing refuses to pass any DOS diagnostics, or play any digital sounds, for the same reason you stated.
So, you're not alone here, but I haven't found any solution yet.

I have noticed, in some games that let you configure manually (eg. Descent, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo), and then let you test the settings, it will play part of a sample briefly before cutting off. This may be a clue.

Try to disable all COM and LPT (parallel) ports in the BIOS (unless you need one).
You need to free up as much resources as possible.

The Aztech card is part of the 3rd generation models, which means it is not a Plug 'n Play card.
If your BIOS supports it, manually assign the Aztech card's resources (sometimes referred to as Legacy) so that your Plug 'n Play configuration manager "knows" those resources are already assigned.

If you run under DOS 6.x, also try running CTCU to assign your AWE card's resources.

Thanks, but already done all that, that's why this is a mystery, by all account the resources should be free for the AWE.

For detail anyway:
The Aztech is fully working, and has it's resources reserved in BIOS.
No other resources are reserved in BIOS, so PnP cards should have access to them.
All Serial & Parallel ports are disabled in BIOS.
Just like OP, I am setting the cards to use different resources.
I managed to add the AWE in Windows, without conflicts, but the digital sound behaves the same way when trying games in a dos box. (Music works fine, as in DOS)
UNISOUND can configure the card in DOS, without any apparent error, but digital sound doesn't work.
I even tried CTCU in DOS, and just like OP, no matter what IRQ or DMA you select, they fail when you use Test.

My cards are configured as:-
Aztech 220,7,1,300 (388 FM, WSS disabled)
AWE64 240,5,0,5,330 (398 FM with Unisound, Gamepad disabled)

The only potential conflict I can see, is FM Synth on port 388, as in Windows and CTCU, there is no option to change it, only UNISOUND appears to offer a means to change or disable it, but I don't think this is the issue, because the music part of the AWE works fine, and the Aztech has zero issues.

Like OP said, it's maddening, because it should work.

Also, a little more clarification on the 'partial sample playback' I mentioned in my original reply, in the Descent diigtal sound test, it is supposed to say 'Seven' three times, center, left, then right. When trying to use the AWE is manages 'Sev' once, then stops until you quit the test. SSF2T or Future Shock (any game using that same sound driver actually) is supposed to say something like 'HMI module approaching space station Mercury' (or something like that), but the AWE only manages 'HMI', before stopping. Duke 3D straight up won't play anything and throws an error saying there may be an IRQ conflict.
I if use Media Player in Windows to play back a 3 second WAV, I hear the beginning, and the end, but the middle part cuts out.

AWE64 Sound Card I/O Conflicts
This guy is describing the same sample playback issue as I think i'm getting...

RockstarRunner wrote on 2021-07-20, 05:13:

Thanks, but already done all that, that's why this is a mystery, by all account the resources should be free for the AWE. […]
Show full quote

Thanks, but already done all that, that's why this is a mystery, by all account the resources should be free for the AWE.

For detail anyway:
The Aztech is fully working, and has it's resources reserved in BIOS.
No other resources are reserved in BIOS, so PnP cards should have access to them.
All Serial & Parallel ports are disabled in BIOS.
Just like OP, I am setting the cards to use different resources.
I managed to add the AWE in Windows, without conflicts, but the digital sound behaves the same way when trying games in a dos box. (Music works fine, as in DOS)
UNISOUND can configure the card in DOS, without any apparent error, but digital sound doesn't work.
I even tried CTCU in DOS, and just like OP, no matter what IRQ or DMA you select, they fail when you use Test.

My cards are configured as:-
Aztech 220,7,1,300 (388 FM, WSS disabled)
AWE64 240,5,0,5,330 (398 FM with Unisound, Gamepad disabled)

The only potential conflict I can see, is FM Synth on port 388, as in Windows and CTCU, there is no option to change it, only UNISOUND appears to offer a means to change or disable it, but I don't think this is the issue, because the music part of the AWE works fine, and the Aztech has zero issues.

Like OP said, it's maddening, because it should work.

Also, a little more clarification on the 'partial sample playback' I mentioned in my original reply, in the Descent diigtal sound test, it is supposed to say 'Seven' three times, center, left, then right. When trying to use the AWE is manages 'Sev' once, then stops until you quit the test. SSF2T or Future Shock (any game using that same sound driver actually) is supposed to say something like 'HMI module approaching space station Mercury' (or something like that), but the AWE only manages 'HMI', before stopping. Duke 3D straight up won't play anything and throws an error saying there may be an IRQ conflict.
I if use Media Player in Windows to play back a 3 second WAV, I hear the beginning, and the end, but the middle part cuts out.

Perhaps try disabling the high DMA channel on the SB AWE card (i.e., use the same one as the low DMA channell) and see what happens.

PS: What is the main use of each card in your system?

Thanks for the tip, good suggestion, and I had already tried that too. There's something going on between these two cards, and I can't figure it out.
I've taken the nuclear option, and switched out the Aztech for the Orpheus, and that works perfectly with the AWE. The Aztech has now gone to another PC.

The point of adding the AWE was to add bug free SB16 support... and also because I love experimenting with sound cards.

Have at last been able to get my AWE64 to work alongside my Aztech MMSN855 (AZT2320, 4th gen PnP). Both are PnP so happily used Unisound to configure them and both worked fine separately, but once I added them together the AWE64 completely failed, despite none of the resources overlapping.

In Unisound...

Turns out the Aztech card was hogging a second DMA channel I hadn't configured and was trying to use on the AWE64. I couldn't figure out what the card was doing with it, or how to disable/modify it, but once I avoided it with the AWE64, everything started working nicely again.

For the record this was the config:

AZT2320:
A220 I5 D1 T4 P330 U2 - but with this card in the system with this config, DMA 3 was also unusable.

AWE64 (did not work):
A240 I7 D3 H5 T6 P300 E640 F398 J0
AWE64 (worked fine):
A240 I7 D0 H5 T6 P300 E640 F398 J0

System also contains a GUS 2.4, which did its own thing and wasn't affected by anything the other two cards did or didn't do. Its settings:
A260 I3,3 D6,6

Finally, I had to keep other PnP stuff off the resources needed, so in PCI/PnP BIOS I reserved IRQs 3, 5, 7 and 9, and DMA 0, 1, 5 and 6 (also tried 3, but it didn't matter either way). Board is a Tekram P6B40-A4X with i440BX. COM2 and LPT1 are both disabled.

I could reproduce both outcomes with an Aztech/HP I38-SN96116 and a Creative SB32 CT3670 as well, so it's at least generic for 4th gen Aztech cards, but wouldn't be surprised if 3rd gen (like yours) also suffer from it. In any case I'd recommend playing around with DMA, even if you're sure you're not using the DMA channel configured on the Aztech card.

@dionb This information is very valuable for me too, thank you. I own an Aztech MMSN830, an AWE64 Gold, an ESS 1868F, some crappy Vibra and a couple PCI cards and haven't been able to make 2 cards work together after every possible combination.

Do note I was using 4th gen PnP Aztech cards, not the 3rd gen ones you and OP have. It's possible they are doing something else. Didn't have time to dig up one of my 3rd gen cards to test I'm afraid, was too exhausted after continuing well beyond bedtime.

dionb wrote on 2021-07-26, 23:18:

Turns out the Aztech card was hogging a second DMA channel I hadn't configured and was trying to use on the AWE64. I couldn't figure out what the card was doing with it, or how to disable/modify it, but once I avoided it with the AWE64, everything started working nicely again.

I had a similar experience while trying to get an OPTi card to work alongside an AWE64.

It's very odd how some of these cards tend to unexpectedly grab certain resources.

Maybe it's related to WSS support?

This is all really interesting, and the tinkerer in me wants to setup the Aztech/AWE configuration again to continue experimenting, but I know I won't, the Orpheus is just a better solution for my setup, and i'm kind of glad this issue cropped up, so I finally got around to learning how to properly use the Orpheus. I'll always love my Aztech though, and it's doing good work in a new home (computer).

Oetker wrote on 2021-07-27, 08:46:

Maybe it's related to WSS support?

That was my first thought too, but DMA for WSS and SB is shared.

Documentation on Aztech cards is notoriously poor, but there are Linux ALSA drivers and there's something interesting there:
https://gitlab.cs.hs-rm.de/CaroloCup/ti-linux … df03325e9925b9d

dma1 - DMA # for WSS playback (0,1,3)
dma2 - DMA # for WSS capture (0,1), -1 = disabled (default)

This is the 2316 (3rd gen) driver, but it's also there in 1605 (2nd gen) and 2320 (4th gen) ALSA drivers.

Bear in mind this is Linux and ALSA, so the defaults may be different in DOS, but it looks like there's definitely a separate DMA there for capture. My guess is that this is the problem, with the capture DMA not explicitly set but still there. In my case (AZT2320) it might have a Unisound angle, but with the non-PnP AZT2316 cards here we can rule that out. I didn't want to dig up my system again (this is my son's retro gaming box that I want to "just work"), but I now want to stick in a 3rd gen AZT2316 card to see if I can reproduce the exact same behaviour. Should be easy as I have an MMSN847 set to exact same parameters as the MMSN855 I had been testing last week. If I see the same there, we can be fairly sure that what I've seen on the 2320 is the same as what is reported here on the 2316.

Right, tested with the MMSN847 and I have NOT been able to reproduce this issue with the 3rd gen AZT2316R on it.

AZT2316R, set to: A220 I5 D1 T4 P330 U2 via config.exe (defaulting to W530 F388 as well)

So long as I chose resources which were not directly used by the AZT2316R (or taken by some other PnP device) I was able to put the AWE64 next to it in any config I tried, i.e.

A240 I7 D0 H5 T6 P300 E640 F398 J0
A240 I7 D3 H5 T6 P300 E640 F398 J0

So looks like my problem with the AZT2320 was unrelated to yours on the AZT2316 after all. In fact I had zero problems at all with this combination. I then decided to push my luck by replacing the MMSN847 with my Terratec EWS64XL, but that is one card I *really* can't get working next to the AWE64 for more than one boot - and offtopic here.