IRQ Problems

Apollonius · Post by **Apollonius** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 4:46 am

I'm trying to use Live 6 with an M-Audio 410 box. I'm having problems recording and playing back clean audio - sounds scratchy. I've tracked the problem down to the fact that that M-Audio 410 is sharing the same IRQ as my graphics card. Everything sounds clean without Live running. As soon as I start recording in Live, it's the same scratchy audio.

Problem is that I can't just swap IRQ's around in Windows XP. The firewire device is coming off the motherboard so it seems fairly locked in to where's it is on the IRQ list. Same with the graphics card. Motherboard is ASUS A8V Deluxe. I bought a card with additional USB and firewire ports which are on a different IRQ. The M-Audio box works fine from those ports, too. However, when I boot up Live, it doesn't even see the M-Audio box there. Well it says it s there, but you can't record any audio into Live and usually it just locks up the software.

Is it possible to tell Live where to look for the M-Audio signal?

Any ideas on resolving this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 6:17 am

it's not impossible to manually configure IRQ's in Xp, but it involves switching to "standard PC" drivers instead of "ACPI" drivers, and I would not recommend doing that without first researching it very thoroughly. it's easy enough to switch, but very difficult to switch back (pretty sure it would involve a fresh windows install)

some devices only play nicely with certain firewire chipsets - maybe the card you got does not have a chipset which the M-audio likes. i'd recommend investigating there.

have you tried putting the card in different pci slots?

macdeath · Post by **macdeath** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 6:32 pm

try a software called POWER STRIP...

its to help you with such problems with IRQ sharing

difference · Post by **difference** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 12:40 pm

macdeath wrote:try a software called POWER STRIP...

its to help you with such problems with IRQ sharing

Got a link?

(that is not something I want to be googling from work!

)

macdeath · Post by **macdeath** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:10 pm

http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

its a freeware

difference · Post by **difference** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:47 pm

PowerStrip provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest ATI X1900 Crossfire and NVidia Quad-SLI 7900. It is in fact the only program of its type to support multiple graphics cards from multiple chipset vendors, simultaneously, under every Windows operating system from Windows 95 to the x64-bit edition of XP. A simple menu that pops up from the system tray provides access to some 500 controls over your display hardware, including sophisticated color correction tools, period level adjustments over screen geometry, and driver independent clock controls. A powerful application profiler can detect when programs are launched and respond by activating specific display settings, gamma adjustments, performance switches and even clock speeds - returning everything to normal when the program closes. In-game gamma hotkeys let you light up the darkest hallways during game play, and hardware control over refresh rates - with floating point precision - ensure you're never stuck at just 60Hz no matter what OS you're using. A quick setup wizard gets you up and running with minimal fuss, extensive context-sensitive help is available for all controls, and live updates are supported to ensure you're always running the latest release. Finally, an assortment of system and productivity tools - among them, extensive diagnostics, PCIe and AGP device configuration, EDID decoding and jig-free updating, desktop icon management, a system idle thread, Windows resource monitoring, an anti-burn-in orbiting option, physical memory optimization, an on-screen display, and the most advanced monitor support in the industry - round out the compact 1MB package.

Doesn't mention anything about IRQ sharing

controlphr33k · Post by **controlphr33k** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 7:22 pm

longjohns wrote:it's not impossible to manually configure IRQ's in Xp, but it involves switching to "standard PC" drivers instead of "ACPI" drivers, and I would not recommend doing that without first researching it very thoroughly. it's easy enough to switch, but very difficult to switch back (pretty sure it would involve a fresh windows install)

some devices only play nicely with certain firewire chipsets - maybe the card you got does not have a chipset which the M-audio likes. i'd recommend investigating there.

have you tried putting the card in different pci slots?

+1 on the firewire chipset suggestion. I've had the best luck with the firewire chipsets from Texas Instruments - - cards that have a TI chipset are almost always way more expensive than cards with a VIA or unspecified chipset. . .but there's a reason for that.

here is M-Audio's official list:

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=sup ... 92c065fbd1

they appoved two different VIA's, but (in my experience) that doesn't mean that ANY VIA chipset card is going to work for you.

However (in my own experience) anything with a TI FireWire chipset is going to rock.

good luck,

cF