Can I use My scope with Asus I875??

Individu · Post by **Individu** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:47 am

I have the Asus Board I875 P4C800 Deluxe and My computer is freezing anytime, and shutdown and restart is my only way to get out of the freeze. It will freeze rightaway or after sometime. I have tried everything, turning off USBs, HT, slots and IRQ changes, I mean you name it. I have tried alot of solutions I found in this forum and yet nothing seems to work. It worries me because I have spend about $5000 Canadians for this scope card, And I have not made any music on it yet. I have 1GB of Memory, ATI 9800 AGP card dual monitors, ATI TV tuner, Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz processor. At first I was so worried about the card but when I read some messages on this website and forum it gives me some hope. I really want to spend some serious money and get a state of the Art stuf and creamware seems to be great besides protools of course. I said to myself if this does not work I would have to get a protools system. But it is quite expensive. I would rather have my creamware work. But if not I don't have a choice but to spend more for a digidesign system. Can some of you smart guys help a bit? Thanks.

fidox · Post by **fidox** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 7:24 am

hi !

i have very similar setup:
asus P4C800-deluxe
P4 2.8HT 1mb
1gb Ram
ati radeon 9600pro
2xlunaII
1xPulsar XTC
1x usb midi keyboard controller

SFP 4.0
Cubase 5.1
WinXP

i get freezes too, but not always, sometimes i can work 4-5 hours without any problems, sometimes i get freeze sooner, depends...
i also have tried a lot of stuff,
HT off, USB off, different PCI slots, PC standard mode ,
and
i don't have any network installed or network card enabled, cause i have another computer for internet, so this one is just for my cw cards...

i also have tried with win98, but i'm not satisfied with them anymore...

i'm still searching for solution....

have all nice time !

matej

Post by **Guest** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 1:01 pm

What are the complete specs of your system
What OS and what Service pack do you have ?
what IRQ your card is taking ? what IRQ your Video card is taking?
is your OS installed in ACPI or standard mode?

did you disable HT? and on board sound and some of the USB's

Freezing is not a scope problem as many here have multiple cards. I have 3 in one machine and work great.
So throw as much info here as possible so some of us can give you some hints.

liberty · Post by **liberty** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:34 am

hello!
i have Pulsar I + SRB + A16 (4+4 DSP)
i'm going to change my computer right now. I wanna buy other mother board and CPU.
What do you think about Gigabyte?!
GA-8IK1100 (http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Pr ... 202.0).htm)
it is Intel 875P chipset
I will not connect other devices except of Video card ATI RADEON 9200 (GV-R9264D), i will use it for a two monitors.
and Intel CPU 3.0Ghz (Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor Supporting HT Technology mPGA478)

-
or maybe beter to buy some ASUS mother board?

[ This Message was edited by: liberty on 2004-12-02 00:36 ]

[ This Message was edited by: liberty on 2004-12-02 00:38 ]

Individu · Post by **Individu** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 5:53 am

Antar what type of board do you have? Are you able to run the higher board than recommended by creamware? And I wander why is creamware not improving the product. It seems to be a good product, if they can only fix all those incompatibilities and problems of USBs, IRQ and turn off this card, that card and so forth. Since you say you have 3 cards, are you able to use them with enough stability where a whole commercial studio can relay upon that? Give me your setup, maybe I need to change my system. The thing is, some of these motherboard I can't find in my normal computer store, I have to order them and they seem to be expensive than the new ones. I am a Computer Tech and I support different computer manufacturers but this creamware card has just brought me to my knees. I can use my computer well with the scope card installed. But as soon as I install the working platform (3.1 or 4) it begins to lock up and freeze randomly. I have removed and reformated the whole PC but same problem. OH, my! When am I really going to start to do music with this one? After spending $5000... IT SHOULDN'T BE LIKE THIS. I might be able to fix the problem in the future but... still, IT SHOULDN'T BE LIKE THIS. I expect this to happen on a $500 or $600 card, not a $5000 one.

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:00 pm

On 2004-12-02 05:53, Individu wrote:
It seems to be a good product, if they can only fix all those incompatibilities and problems of USBs, IRQ and turn off this card, that card and so forth.

This is more an operating system problem + hardware vendors problem. You should be well aware of that if you are a computer tech

.

Post by **garyb** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:59 pm

scope is highly specialized and quite complex and powerful. it is for a specific purpose. it is expensive. it only makes sense to put it in a machine that is also for the same purpose and is compatible. the result is an awesome music production machine. for toys, stick with soundblaster.

that said individu, you're right. it shouldn't be like THAT. the mobos i have been using lately have been intel d865perl. that mobo is about $89 us so it's not expensive. i have also used the d850mv with considerable success. there does seem to be a lot of fuss around the asus p800, but on the other hand, many are using it with no problem.

also, $5000 seems like an awful lot to spend on a $800- $2000 card even in canadian $......

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2004-12-02 13:08 ]

Post by **Guest** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:28 pm

Liberty: I have read and made note of these mainboards from this forum from other users for possible future updates.

Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro with AMD64 3200
MSI K8N Neo Platinum with AMD64 3200
Intel D875PBZ
Intel with 865 motherboards which garryb uses seems a stable and cheaper way to go.

most of us aware that the great Hans Zimmer uses Multiple Scope SP Boards in his many PC's and CWA had him featured for a year on their site. In fact if you watch the Extra CD with gladiator you will see that Zimmer uses the word Secret weapon when referring to Creamware.

new mainboards these days comes pretty loaded with so many features that there is no room for Extra cards. And this requires lots of work on the user's side. Be it the OS or the PC itself. If you decide to do music with a PC you have to have lots of patience as shit does happen if you have SCOPE cards or Sound blaster cards. Find the problem and solve it and seek help where you can. As many have said here before this is not a sound card only this is an entire OS.

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... 19&start=0

[ This Message was edited by: antar on 2004-12-02 15:27 ]

Post by **hubird** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 8:09 pm

Individu, it's definitely not Scope that's responsable for troubles, I never ever (well, once) had a crash or have other Scope problems on my mac.
And it's the same hard- and software for both platforms, Scope is even crossplatform able (tho pc's seem to have problems with the mac .pro files...).
Hope you figure it all out

Individu · Post by **Individu** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:15 am

Thanks alot guys for your information. I know you guys are great and thanks to John Cooper for this great website. John What is a better way to give you help, man you are great. Can money order or postal checks work?

Anyway, most people forget that even Techs need to learn. There is always something new. And no one knows everything. Symbiote, I deal with great techs every day that have been in the field for many years and sometimes are not able to solve simple things because they think too far ahead.

My computer works well and will not lock up at all when the scope card is sitting inside the PCI slot and SFP is not installed. But when I install the SFP3.1 or 4, then it will begin to lock up. When you says it is an operating system and Hardware problem, what hardware are you talking about and what vendors. Are you saying that the Asus i875 chipset has a problem to work with creamware?

Symbiote, this is why I don't like to introduce myself as a tech because, people assume we must know it all. Now I can't learn about my problem and how to solve it because you assume I am suppose to know and have the answer. Well, guest what, If I had it I would have not asked the question here on this great forum.

Guys do not get me wrong, I know creamware is a great product that's why I decided to get it. But at the same time I expect them to have updates for newer products. I know It is for music and I have about 3 great PCs with one server. I do not have a need to use my Music PC for junk. I know it must be either the PCI is not supported by the motherboard or some driver that I am not able to figure out.

[ This Message was edited by: Individu on 2004-12-03 01:15 ]

Individu · Post by **Individu** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:34 am

Yes Garyb, these card cost alot in Canada and you have to consider the tax. In Toronto we pay two taxes, Federal and provincial. That just bumps the price. But lately because of the Canadian Dollar increase, it costs now $3000+tax
I might try another mother board that you use, garyb. Hopefully it will work. Thanks for your offer to help me with this. I will try abit again. If I fail totally I will call you.
This is what I tried so far:
* ACPCI On/Off
*Turned off all 8 USB ports, All raid ports, All Plug&Play, Hyper Threading.
*Tried The card to all 5 PCI slots still not OK.
*Re-installed the whole windows twice formating the whole computer and made a Symantec ghost back up of windows without any drivers just in case I needed to re-install it the 3rd time, so I can do a quick system recovery.

Thanks Antar
By the way can the power supply be a problem? I have one of those Antec Cases with a 400W power supply. I have a plextor cdrw, a scope 15 DSPs, an ATI 9800 card and the TV wonder card in the computer.That's all.

[ This Message was edited by: Individu on 2004-12-03 01:50 ]

dbmac · Post by **dbmac** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 8:36 am

Individu I use the same Asus board with 2 Scope cards (15 + 6 DSP), no freezing.
Maybe I could help you troubleshoot. I'm in Toronto, give me a call:
416 444 0085

/dave

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 11:02 am

Sorry Individu, I never meant you should know everything, I meant that, as a computer tech, you've probably been exposed to Windows and its multitude of quirkiness at least once.

What I meant by hardware and software vendors is, the hardware vendors decide to build the motherboards and CPU, they decide what standard and protocols they will implement, how it's going to be implemented, and so on. Creamware doesn't have control over Intel putting HT in their CPU, Creamware doesn't have control over Windows' driver interface, Creamware doesn't have control over the buggy VIA PCI implementation, Creamware doesn't have control over ACPI/Standard PC stuff, Creamware didn't decide to keep the dirty IRQ stuff that should have been phased out of hardware long ago. Creamware can't provide you with a patch for the operating system, or a patch for your motherboard's firmware, or a patch for another of your hardware device.

Also, Creamware can't test their cards with every single motherboard in existence, or every single Creamware+other PCI card in exitence, and your motherboard manufacturer also can't test every card with their motherboards, nor every card combination.

I also meant that Windows, out of the box, isn't made for high caliber reliable time-critical work like shovelling 16, 24 or 32 (or more) streams of audio, it's made to browse the web and send emails and do office work. With some work, you can get it to be pretty reliable, but it's still going to be quirky.

Given how many motherboards, cpu, and PCI device configuration possible in the PC, some of them are bound to cause conflicts. And sometimes, it's really not easy to figure out, i.e a certain video card on a certain motherboard will work great, and a certain audio card with the same motherboard will work great, but if you put the 2 cards together on the same motherboard, things will messy up. Sometimes, drivers conflict with each other, even if by themselves they work great. Given the HUGE amount of different hardware and drivers floating around for PC, making a full list of every working/not working combiation is almost impossible.

Best you can do is check out forums with lots of users who have tried lots of different combinations and can tell you what works and what doesn't. So, at least, you ended up at the right place

So again, I never meant to imply you had to know everything, quite the contrary, having done a fair bit of tech support myself, I have alot of respect for people how fix computer problems, and I know full well that even after years of experience, you simply can't know how to fix everything. I also know that setting up Creamware stuff can be fairly voodoo-esque, but I also know that the efforts are 110% (and more) worth the effort.

So, to get back to your specific problem, power supply shouldn't be a problem as far as power goes. I'm running Scope + Luna cards (18 dsps total), cheapo sb-emulating card, network card, GeForce2 GTS card, 2 hard drives and 2 cd drives (dvdrom + cdwriter) without any problems off a 300W power supply.

On the other hand, a faulty power supply might be the culprit. Sometimes it's just slightly faulty, and might send voltage spikes (or dips) once in a while that might cause a crash.

Something else you could also try, is removing all the cards you can from your computer, except video and Creamware, and see how that works. If you can get a different video card from another computer/friend to try it out, that would be worth the try.

You can also try to put the Creamware card in different PCI slots. Some motherboards have slots that share IRQs (like my Asus CUSL2 board's PCI slot 1 and 5 are linked/shared.)

Again, you might think it's alot of trouble and it's Creamware's fault, but Creamware didn't built the motherboard, nor the operating system, they have to work with the interface provided by the hardware (PCI) and software (windows drivers) vendors. Creamware cards are highly complex and demanding, its not just a simple network card.

Also, remember that Microsoft doesn't really sell the hardware their OS runs on, so unless you have a multimillion contract with them, they really don't give a damn wether their OS works tighly with your hardware. If you go with Apple, you'll pay a bit more (not that much tho these days,) but at least they support both hardware and software, and can't give you the "we can't do anything, try your hardware vendor" excuse.

Unfortunately, SFP doesn't run on OSX yet

.

OTOH, I really doubt you'd have less trouble with Digidesign cards, but given how much you pay for them, they'll probably help you support them a bit more

. UAD/Poco might be simpler to operate, but they don't have any I/O, so this simplifies things a bit.

Also, about the upgrades/updates, I'm not sure why you'd want them. The SFP software is highly stable at this point, and doesn't need updating at all (personal opinion.) Some of the devices, maybe (*cough*sampler*cough*optimaster*cough*), and again this is something you can bug Creamware with, and apparently some people have trouble with drivers (I don't

), and again you can bug Creamware with this, but the software itself really doesn't need updating, and that's a good sign, because only broken things need to be updated/fixed =P. At least, from purely personal experience, in the 5 years I've been using Creamware cards, their software has consistently been the most stable software on my machine. I've had it run for 7 days straight with Logic without problems. Then again, my machine was built around the card, and it's older tech with none of the newer HT/denormalizing gimmicks.)

So, sorry for the long rant, sorry if you misunderstood what I meant, and believe me we'll (at least, I will, and no Creamware doesn't pay me, but they gave out SDK, so they have my eternal gratitude, even if they can sell all my eventual plugins at no charge for like 10 years

) do everything to help you get the most out of your cards.

[ This Message was edited by: symbiote on 2004-12-03 11:18 ]

Post by **Guest** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:05 pm

If the power supply is old it may cause this.

400 Watts is OK unless you have lots of HD and full range of PCI cards.

I am suspecting one of the video cards. Try removing one and make sure the other's drivers is up to date.

then give Dave a call in T.O as he will be a great help to you.

harmonik · Post by **harmonik** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 3:57 pm

I also had hanging problems with an old ASUS motherboard and a Matrox Mystic video card. I bought an ABIT IC7 Max3 motherboard and a Matrox G550 (dual screen) and had no problems. Just keep the video card and Creamware. Update the video card driver from the internet. Flash your BIOS with utility from ASUS. If your PC is still hanging, try another video card (you certainly can obtain one from a friend or find an old one). Do you have certified memory? Not certified memory may lead to instability. Let me know the results.

Post by **Guest** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 4:05 pm

harmonik

Excellent first post. Welcome to the Z

Individu · Post by **Individu** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 2:42 am

Thanks guys. I love this community. I have never seen any bunch of guys with alot of love and support. You guys make me really want to keep my product. Symbiote thank you for the clarification, I think I misunderstood you. Sorry. Thank you for the great support. I am at work right now and I work two jobs just to buy gear for my music. Once I get all that I need I might consider staying with one job or just do music. When I go home, I will try those suggestions and I will keep you guys posted. Dave I will call you very soon. Most probably next week or so. My jobs do leave me very little time but I will call you. Thank you for the offer Dave. I migh possibily get another system.

Individu · Post by **Individu** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 2:43 am

Is the corsair dual memory better than Kingston?

Individu · Post by **Individu** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 2:49 am

Dave what is your computer settings. IRQ, HT, USBs, memory type and size, cpu, HDD and Bios settings.

nitty gritty · Post by **nitty gritty** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 6:29 am

I hope this helps:

Mobo: Asus p4c800 deluxe
Cpu: Intel 3.2 Extreme Edition
Graphic: Radeon 7000
Ram: 1Gb Dual Channel Ocz
Usb 2.0: X 8
Network Lan: Intel 1Gb
Mouse: Usb

Cubase Sx 2.2

Scope 4:

1 x Luna
2 X Pulsar II
1 x A16 Breakout box

Fx Teleport connecting to a second pc with
the same motherboard and Lan.

I would like to say that I do get freezes but only when the system is at its absolute limit. Hey that's windows for ya...

I experimented with a lot of settings to get my system working better.

In the bios:

A: Make sure your mobo isn't set to overclocking by mistake.

B: Disable every port and resource that you don't need or use e.g. Serial & Paralell ports, Firewire etc... If like me you use a usb mouse, even disable the ps2 mouse!

C: Disable internal sounds hardware/software.

Backup your drivers for your graphics card and then uninstall them. Install your scope 4
software and reinstall your graphics drivers (I've seen this in other threads).

If you haven't done so before, follow these guides to optimise your settings:

http://www.musicxp.net/tuning_tips.php

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Mar02/a ... an0302.asp

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Apr02/a ... an0402.asp

P>S> Don't forget to post some music in the appropriate forum for us all to make fun of.

...Ben...