For what it’s worth, I’m unable to get my ES1869 working properly as well: Garbled sound in Windows 98

It works in DOS, but in Windows digital audio is horribly distorted.

ShovelKnight wrote:

For what it’s worth, I’m unable to get my ES1869 working properly as well: Garbled sound in Windows 98

It works in DOS, but in Windows digital audio is horribly distorted.

Bleh. Phil praised the ESS1868 so much, but you get one number off, and it's ESS hell. At least you have a BIOS you can try addressing the PnP garbage with, mine simply doesn't mention it anywhere. Plug 'n Pray is sin even if your BIOS seems to support it.

Drop that ISA card into a PC with PnP support and change its IRQ and DMA to 5/1 or 7/1 using ESSCFG.EXE and when you move it back to your 486 it will probably work fine again.

appiah4 wrote:

Drop that ISA card into a PC with PnP support and change its IRQ and DMA to 5/1 or 7/1 using ESSCFG.EXE and when you move it back to your 486 it will probably work fine again.

I figure I could drop it into my SS7 machine and run that and see where I get. I just with the thing had a NO SIN jumper on it where it disables PnP. To anybody who is designing a new ISA PnP card that allows for PnP to be disabled: Please make a jumper that allows for PnP to be disabled, and name it DISABLE SIN. Thank you.

DISABLE SIN: PINS 1-2
ENABLE SIN: PINS 2-3

appiah4 wrote:

Drop that ISA card into a PC with PnP support and change its IRQ and DMA to 5/1 or 7/1 using ESSCFG.EXE and when you move it back to your 486 it will probably work fine again.

Does it actually have an EEPROM that saves the settings?

ShovelKnight wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Drop that ISA card into a PC with PnP support and change its IRQ and DMA to 5/1 or 7/1 using ESSCFG.EXE and when you move it back to your 486 it will probably work fine again.

Does it actually have an EEPROM that saves the settings?

I don't know how that crap works but the ESS cards I have seem to remember what you set with ESSET. I think they are configuration registers that are somehow stored on the card, possibly on the PnP controller.

appiah4 wrote:

I don't know how that crap works but the ESS cards I have seem to remember what you set with ESSET. I think they are configuration registers that are somehow stored on the card, possibly on the PnP controller.

I know that I used to have an old ISA RJ45/BNC based network card that saved the settings you applied to it using a DOS utility, but I'm pretty sure that one has an EEPROM. I'm also unsure as to whether or not the ESS has one or not.

There's no EEPROM on these cards. When you set the resources via ESSCFG, it will add a line to autoexec.bat which will init the card on each boot with the settings made.

derSammler wrote:

There's no EEPROM on these cards. When you set the resources via ESSCFG, it will add a line to autoexec.bat which will init the card on each boot with the settings made.

Hm. Not sure what I can do now, considering that this is technically what I've been doing the whole time, just with drivers that "work," but were likely incorrect. I'd like to use the drivers that are more meant for the card, but that PnP crap is detected by the software and it notes that the card has already been configured by the BIOS, or something like that. I went to the effort to take the card out to search for a jumper before, but I never found one, which frustrates the situation more so than it would've if it was like the SCSI card, just non-PnP, or at least, giving you a choice between using PnP or not. I think the motherboard is at fault here more than anything- if it would at least allow me to disable PnP, or allocate specific resources to the card, this might not be as much of an issue, but being that this is an IBM OEM board, it doesn't give me such liberties.

ShovelKnight wrote:

For what it’s worth, I’m unable to get my ES1869 working properly as well: Garbled sound in Windows 98

It works in DOS, but in Windows digital audio is horribly distorted.

IIRC, use the 1868 drivers as the newer ones don't allow you to specify IRQs and DMA channels.

gdjacobs wrote:

ShovelKnight wrote:

For what it’s worth, I’m unable to get my ES1869 working properly as well: Garbled sound in Windows 98

It works in DOS, but in Windows digital audio is horribly distorted.

IIRC, use the 1868 drivers as the newer ones don't allow you to specify IRQs and DMA channels.

They do, but only if the card isn't configured by PnP BIOS.

Well, that makes sense. The older drivers allow you to force an override, so I recommend using them instead of the newer versions.

derSammler wrote:

There's no EEPROM on these cards. When you set the resources via ESSCFG, it will add a line to autoexec.bat which will init the card on each boot with the settings made.

This is not correct.

http://www.electroscheme.ru/datasheet/ESS-tech/PB1868C.PDF

Plug and Play Features […]
Show full quote

Plug and Play Features

• On-chip Plug and Play support for audio, joystick port, FM, modem, MPU-401, CD-ROM, and an dditional user-defined I/O device
• Software address mapping, and 4 DMA and 6 IRQ selections for motherboard implementation
• Internal configuration data for audio Plug and Play support
• Read/Write serial interface for Plug and Play resource EEPROM

Emphasis mine.

Also if you look on page 2 you will see that PINs 21, 22 and 23 are used for communicating with the PnP EEPROM.

As such, these cards can remember the last PnP because they can write to an external PnP EEPROM. And some cards do have an External EEPROM. I no longer have an ESS card with an EEPROM in my collection unfortunately (though I do have YMF and OPTI cards with 93C66 EEPROMs) but this card for example, has a solder pad for it (93C66), but it's not actually mounted:

But this one on Amoretro.de actually does have a 93C66 on it for the PnP Data EEPROM:

This one has an SMD EEPROM IC, the HT93LC66P:

And of course quality boards like the Terratec Gold 16/96 obviously have that EEPROM 93C66 as well:

So yeah, I don't know exactly what the ES1869 card in the OP's PC is like, but I would assume the issue is there because the card has an EEPROM and the data in the card's EEPROM defaults it to IRQ/DMA that one wouldn't want on an SB Pro (Weird shit like IRQ 9, DMA 0 etc).

@athlon-power can you please post a photo of the ES1869 card you are using?

@appiah4:

Did you actually read what you just posted? Of course it has storage for Plug and Play data, otherwise the card could not work in a PnP system. And the text you've quoted even says exactly that.

At least I was talking about ESSCFG, which is for non-PnP mode and there is no EEPROM to store the settings made with ESSCFG! In non-PnP mode, ESSCFG must be called on each boot via autoexec.bat.

derSammler wrote:

@appiah4:

Did you read what you actually posted? Of course it has storage for Plug and Play data, otherwise the card could not work in a PnP system.

At least I was talking about ESSCFG, which is for non-PnP mode and there is no EEPROM to store the settings made with ESSCFG!

That is not how ESSCFG works. You can call ESSCFG from Autoexec.bat before SET BLASTER and it still retains the previous PnP configuration.

appiah4 wrote:

You can call ESSCFG from Autoexec.bat before SET BLASTER and it still retains the previous PnP configuration.

No, you can't, since ESSCFG does not even work when the card is in PnP mode... Please learn the difference between using the card in non-PnP mode using ESSCFG and having the card set up by PnP. This makes a huge difference in how the card works.

derSammler wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

You can call ESSCFG from Autoexec.bat before SET BLASTER and it still retains the previous PnP configuration.

No, you can't, since ESSCFG does not even work when the card is in PnP mode... Please learn the difference between using the card in non-PnP mode using ESSCFG and having the card set up by PnP. This makes a huge difference in how the card works.

Ok, look, I don't want to start a huge argument over it because I don't have a system to test this out with me at the moment but ESSCFG.EXE does exactly what you say it does not: It configures the card for PnP mode.

Grab this DOS driver pack: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ess-audiodrive-es1868.html

So we call ESSCFG /? at command line, and here is what it does:

If you want more proof download the ES688 driver disks here: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … menustate=46,36

On the README.TXT from Disk 1:

[ ESSCFG.EXE ] […]
Show full quote

[ ESSCFG.EXE ]

ESSCFG.EXE is a DOS utility program for setting or display the
IRQ channel and DMA channel of your Sound Card. This program
can override the settings of hardware jumper and let you change
the setting without turning off your system.

To use this program:

1. Change to the directory where the Sound Card software is
installed.

2. Type "ESSCFG" and press <ENTER>.

3. The program will detect and display the I/O address, current
IRQ channel and DMA channel settings of the Sound Card.

4. Follow the instruction on screen to select the function or
exit the program.

Emphasis mine. Note Number 3; it detects the PnP configuration STORED on the card. It can do this without a SET BLASTER environment. On cards without Non-PnP setting jumpers.

You want more proof? Go here: http://www.daqarta.com/ess.htm

These guys have alternative drivers for ESS cards, and here's what they say for ESSCFG.EXE:

This driver does not directly configure PnP (Plug 'n Play) cards. It reads the base address, IRQ, and DMA settings for the card from the BLASTER environment string, which should be set by a PnP configuration manager such as ESSCFG.EXE, or by a SET BLASTER= line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

Emphasis mine.

More proof that it can be used with PnP, Guillemot Maxi Sound drivers: ftp://retronn.de/driver/Guillemot/MaxiSound64 … c3D/DOSMAXI/ESS

From the Readme:

ESSCFG.EXE allows the user to configure the ESS sound chip with a base address, a DMA channel, an IRQ channel, and an address fo […]
Show full quote

ESSCFG.EXE allows the user to configure the ESS sound chip with a base address, a DMA channel, an IRQ channel, and an address for the MPU-401 port, if a wavetable is supported by the sound card.

ESSVOL.EXE allows the user to configure the output volume level of the mixer in the sound chip.

Plug & Play O/S: Yes

1. Type ESSCFG [Enter]. This will display the current setting and selected menu to change the desire setting.

2. ESSCFG /? [Enter]. For help.

3. Type ESSVOL [Enter]. Display selected menu to change the desire setting.

4. ESSVOL /? [Enter]. For help.

Typical parameters are:
Address: 220
DMA: 1
IRQ: 5
MPU-401: 300

When finish, hit ESC and prompt will ask to save to config.sys and autoexec.bat [YN]

Plug & Play O/S: NO

1. Type ESSCFG [Enter]. This will display the current setting.

2. Type ESSCFG ! This will allow changing the setting.

3. Type ESSVOL [Enter]. Display current volume setting.

4. Type ESSVOL /? [Enter]. For help.

5. Type ESSVOL /(character). This will allow changing the setting.

Typical parameters are:
Address: 220
DMA: 1
IRQ: 5
MPU-401: 300

When finish, hit ESC and prompt will ask to save to config.sys and autoexec.bat [YN]

So yes, ESSCFG.EXE does cofnigure PnP and the card retains these settings. The settings are stored in the PnP EEPROM. So when you install an ESXXXX card, on a PC without PnP, you can not reconfigure these settings and the card defaults to the last settings set using ESSCFG.EXE.

So @athlon-power, to resolve this argument once and for all please stick your soundcard into a PnP capable PC, and run "ESSCFG.EXE /A:220 /I:7 /D:1 /M:e /B:330 /J:e" there, then move it back to your 486 and see if that fixes the issue.

Oh.

I'll get around to doing that tomorrow. I can just throw it in my Super Socket 7 system and run that, and return it to the 486.

I'm semi-paranoid about keeping the ISA cards in that thing because the card slots don't exactly match up with the brackets from the modification I did and so they tilt upwards a few millimeters, causing them to flex. The SCSI card already seems to have permanently taken on this bend instead of returning to normal when I remove it, which makes me worry that I might damage them if I use that system long enough. But I will indeed try that and see if it takes a liking to it or not.