Sonorus, Inc. - STUDI/O Hardware Alerts!!!

Windows 98 returns invalid PCI slot information for motherboards based on the Intel 820 and higher chipsets. Our latest Windows 98 driver has a workaround for this problem. This only affects Windows 98 users, not Windows NT or Windows 2000.

Mac G4
Some early "Sawtooth" G4 motherboards had problems with the PCI bus, based on our experience and that of other PCI board manufacturers. We currently have many Sawtooth G4 users, and our testing with our own G4/450 and those of our partners has verified that STUDI/O works on the G4 with the current driver.

There are other sources of potential G4 configuration problems that we've discovered:
- Logic users should avoid the iMate dongle adaptor. Emagic recommends using a USB dongle.
- Cubase users should have the USB floppy support installed even if they don't have a floppy drive.
- There are some funky MIDI drivers out there. The MOTU OMS driver has been reported as a problem.
- If you want MIDI and low latency, check the user groups to see what USB MIDI hardware works well.
- We've had a couple of users who solved their Mac crashing problems by changing their RAM modules.
We're still having a slightly higher than usual level of configuration problems with the G4, so we'll leave this Hardware Alert open. We'll add any new information here that we get.

Intel 810 chipset .
A user ran into this chipset.
Here are all the gory details:

been busy during the past few weeks so couldn't continue testing the 810; chipset with Sonorus, until last weekend.; Hmmm seems like it's not working.; What happen was i went and exchanged the MagicPro motherboard with another; micro ATX board, which is the ASUS MEW-AML. It also has Intel810 chipset.; (This board has less jumpers, it does have the built in AC97 sound codec,; but also got Crystal Soundchip. Both these cannot be disabled with bios or; jumpers, but can be set inactive in Windows).; I re-installed Windows98se and tried out different ways. It seems that i get; exactly the same problem.; It says it cannot load the drivers. (yellow exclamation mark next to Sonorus; drivers).; I think you ight want to add this to the alert page that the Intel 810; chipset boards (in my case Celeron ones, haven't tried the Slot1 boards); might not work.
: I think this is not a problem with Sonorus. I even borrowed a Yamaha PCI; Soundcard (some basic sb16 yamaha equivalent), the drivers installed ok; (without Yellow Exclamation mark) but when u play a wav file - Boom, the; system just freezes. The same happens with an RME Digi9652.; I emailed Intel before, and their tech support just gave me some "your mobo; is not manufactred by Intel, cannot help you"....; I think it has to be something to do with the PCI drivers....; Anyway, thanks for your help. Hope this information will be helpful to other; users too. (And if you refer me as user summits problems, please refer me as; anonymous!!); Thanks again. I'll probably stick the Sonorus back to my Abit BX6 or my old; Ppro system...

Epox EP-58MVP3C--M motherboard .
A user ran into this motherboard.
Here are all the details:

I'm sorry it's taken so long to get back with you regarding the Hardware

Alert on the motherboard conflict - it's been pretty crazy around here lately.

Here's what info I have on the motherboard:

Brand: Epox

Model: EP-58MVP3C-M

Desc: Super Socket 7 mainboard with 100MHz bus speed, 1 AGP / 4 PCI / 3 ISA (1 Shared)

Chipset: VIA Apollo MVP3 AGP/PCIset

All problems were present even with all cards removed except for the StudI/O

and the AGP Graphics Adapter (Matrox Millenium G200).

At the time of writing this e-mail, I tried Epox's web site to see if there

was anything else to include, but it is currently down. Maybe you can

access it later - it's www.epox.com.

Hope this helps... if you need anything else, please let me know... I

should be a bit more timely now that the holidays are over :)

Thanks,

Allen Minix <aminix@bfdeal.com>

TEAC CDR 55S under NT4.

Our French distributor uncovered a problem with this particular CDR.
Here are all the gory details:

After many many tests we found the problem. On the SCSI chaine we have a CDR Teac 55S. This machine regulary checks the SCSI chaine and does some clicks with the Studio in record or play (I know it is curious but it is true ) , and with each click ,we have in the Studio driver the message : '' loss of realtime ''. If you use an other CDR (I do some tests with a HP and a Philipps with succes ) it is ok. With the Teac if you put a CD in the unit , it is ok. That works. This is all.

My best fron Paris,

Alain

Alesis LX20

We're getting some pops and clicks recording in from the LX20 at 44.1KHz. We're investigating, but in the meantime try to get your hands on any other type of ADAT machine (all the others work fine) or if convenient record your tracks in at 48KHz.
Creative SBLive!.

Some users are reporting incompatibility with SBLive!
It looks like something in the SBLive! driver interferes with the STUDI/O hardware, causing our board to lose sync with its own driver, which causes it to fail. Not all installations fail, but the problem is common enough that our Hardware Alert will stick until Creative makes its driver better behaved. Note that this only applies to the SB Live! series. All other Sound Blaster products work fine in conjunction with STUDI/O.
Asus P2BS Hardware Rev. 1.03.

A user uncovered a problem with one certain rev of Asus hardware.
Here are all the gory details:

I have Asus P2BS Hardware Rev. 1.03
-This board was never able to accept the Studi/o card under Win98/95 with
all hardware combos we tried.
My friend has Asus P2BS Hardware Rev. 1.02
-This board had no problems with the Studi/o card with Win98 or 95

Physical diff's between 1.02 and 1.03:
-1.02 has a jumper for disabling certain SCSI options / while 1.03 has the
same interface in the board's BIOS.

As for the 1.03 board, we went through all of the BIOS updates, and even
"down-graded" the bios to the earliest version Asus has at their website,
always with the same results (Windows locks on boot after Studi/o driver
installation).

-Win95 was tried with all service packs.
-SCSI was fully disabled and a variety of IDE drives were tried.
-AGP / PCI / and ISA video was tried
-All slots were tried
-All BIOS options were exercised with as many combos as we could get our
hands on.
-All suggestions from Sonorus were tried (PCI Steering / etc.. and I'll say
again that Sonorus, in my opinion, provides excellent support)
Power Computing, Power Center Pro/Power Tower Pro.

We've uncovered a problem with the Power Computing Power Center Pro / Power Tower Pro machines. We're working on it, but for now, we're advising against using this machine with studi/o. We're getting no help from Power Computing, of course.
Check HERE for info about Adaptec SCSI controllers in PowerCC's.

Here's the email we got back from tech support:

>Date: 20 Nov 97 15:21:11 -0600
>From: techtalk <techtalk@powercc.com>
>Subject: Re: Beyond the scope of support
>X-Mailer: QuickMail Pro 1.5
>Reply-To: techtalk <techtalk@powercc.com>
>
>We no longer have an engineering group to forward
>questions like this to.

So, if you're shopping for a machine, get a different one! If you already have one, hang in there!
I have a Matrox Millenium video card and I have sync or clicking problems with my STUDI/O card.

The Matrox Millenium card will work with STUDI/O if you take care of these two issues.

First, make sure you are using the latest driver from Matrox (check out http://www.matrox.com/mga/drivers/home.htm).

Next, make sure that in the Matrox configuration settings PCI bus retries are DISABLED. This feature presumably helped Matrox win the graphics benchmark war, but it interferes with other PCI boards that require low-latency interrupts, like the STUDI/O card.

With these two things taken care of, you should have no problems with the Matrox Millenium card.

Thanks to STUDI/O Beta Partner
Mike Bridges, Nashville, TN.

Check out http://www.zefiro.com/vgakills.txt for more on the video card and sound card anomalies.
Thanks to Greg Hansen from Zefiro Acoustics.

Yes, one more site for this pesky problem:
You can find all the fixes for the Matrox cards on Dan Duskin's Cubase Users site
http://www.instanet.com/~thedusk/support/cubase/matrox.html
Thanks to Dan! He's not just a Cubase user; he's a fan.

Motherboards with five (5) PCI slots!

Here's a helpful hint.
If you have a motherboard with five (5) PCI slots, beware that usually 2 slots will share the same interrupt. If you are having problems with STUDI/O and/or any other PCI devices for that matter, try moving the card that is experiencing problems to another slot. See our IRQ Setup application note for more details on interrupts.

Vision S3 Monitor driver

In order to be able to use Vision S3 monitor drivers together with Studi/o make sure you select the driver named "S3". This seem to be a kind of "standard, no extra features" driver which doesn't mess things up.

Thanks to STUDI/O Beta Partner,
Alexander Lindelöf, Höganäs, Sweden.

Using a Turtle Beach Tropez Plus Sound Card in the same system as STUDI/O: Constant Popping at Random 20 sec intervals

Remove your Turtle Beach Tropez Plus Sound Card. This board uses 2 DMA channels and 2 IRQ's! This should solve the random noise problem instantly.

Thanks to STUDI/O Beta Partner,
Steve Conrad, Downey, CA.

Mac Hardware alert - Sample Cell & OMS

'Problems have been reported with Sample Cell II when OMS is in use.'

Thanks to our buddy at Steinberg,
Christian Riesenmey.

Dell Dimension computers

Dell Dimension computers seem to have severe problems with thier interrupt controller. Sonorus is investigating. It might be IRQ Steering -- see our IRQ Setup application note for more details on interrupts.

Thanks to an anonymous STUDI/O user who shall remain that way until his lawyers cut a deal with Federal Prosecutors.
HP Pavillion 8000

There seems to be problems with the interrupts in the HP Pavillion 8000 series computers. We're investigating. It might be IRQ Steering -- see our IRQ Setup application note for more details on interrupts.

Orion Chipsets (PCI Compatibility)

If you look at the 82450 OBP (Bridge chip), the largest of the 7 chip orion chipsets, you will see a # on the chip, 82454. Underneath # is an SU code, this tells you the 'stepping':

Type	A2 stepping	B0 Stepping
SU Code	SU022, SU024, SU028, SU030, SU042, and SU044	SU059,SU063 and SU064
Intel Performance/AU motherboard part number (located on a sticker on the motherboard)	Part #'s that end in -701 or earlier	Part #'s that end in -702
What does this mean to me?	The A2 stepping does not allow outbound write posting under any circumstances so writes to PCI video boards will be limited to about 4MB/sec (REAL SLOW).	You WANT B0 Stepping, if you do any PCI video at all.

ADAT is a trademark of Alesis Corp.
Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple Computers, Inc.
Windows 98, Windows MM System are trademarks of Microsoft Inc.
Studi/o is a trademark of Sonorus, Inc.