How to conquer those damn PCI overflow msgs under XP/2000/98

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 6:08 pm

Well its been a busy night for me, but at two in the morning I finaly solved my pci overflow problems. Heres how....
My setup to begin with was...
KT7A-RAID
moded 64 bios
duron 750
640mb ram
Network card
SB Live
Radeon VE dual screen (beta drivers)
4in1 4.37 drivers
pci latency patch 0.19
wpcredit

Basically my setup was good to start with clean install of winxp, ACPI disable in bios using a mod (see my other post) and every card had its own interupt.
I don't use the raid, usb, com ports etc...
So that saved a lot of hassle, but if I need to use them I can have them with another partition.
Okay Im gonna cut to the chase now,
basically someone mentioned using tweak bios to alter stuff. I did the same, by booting into dos from a floppy then running the program
I altered the pci latency of my pulsar card to be 128. I exited and ran the supplied int13.exe util to reboot keeping my new setting intact.
Then I ran wpcredit, made sure no pulsar apps were running, and saved the register to a file.
Now whenever i want to get rid of those pesky msgs, I load up wpcredit, and load the register, then run pulsar.
The result
5 masterverbs with some dsp to spare, and I can get up to just before the red bar on dsp load with no pci overload error.
Aparrently you can use wpset to permanently have this setting but I couldn't get it to work, im too tired i think!
My dual display pulsar station is now ready to go.
Good luck!

[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-02-15 18:10 ]

[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-02-17 12:39 ]

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Feb 16, 2002 12:13 pm

one addition to this: the SBLive card is said to behave very unpleasant. It tends to grab the bus as a pci master to transfer that it's doing nothing when in idle mode. There are details in discussions about the infamous 'VIA bug' (independent from Pulsar's PCI overflow) on the net.

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Sat Feb 16, 2002 12:19 pm

Yeah, surprisingly that was the first thing I tried doin was taking the sblive out, I've never had a problem with the 686B bug. Didn't seem to make a difference to my pci overflow msgs.
Im anxious for other people to try the
bios tweak prog+ wpcredit fix.
As it litterally allows me to use all the available dsp with no pci overflow msgs.
Well tell a lie, if i use the internet through my NIC it does it if Im using 95% but your not really supposed to use NIC's in DAW's anywayz! I just disconnect the network connection to solve it.
Its just a shame that it has taken me 3 months from getting this card to have a stable setup!

[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-02-16 12:20 ]

RedSun · Post by **RedSun** » Sat Feb 16, 2002 1:29 pm

Surrender now!

Resistance is futile...

Or you could do a search on this forum. There's a couple of trics that you can find that help but, it'll never be perfect...

RedSun .:.

dxl · Post by **dxl** » Sat Feb 16, 2002 3:29 pm

trying is useless
that pci overflow is on almost every motherboard

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Sat Feb 16, 2002 4:04 pm

no way... not here anymore HA!

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Sat Feb 16, 2002 4:31 pm

So has anyone else actually tried this then?

I know its a bit technical for a beginner, but it really has eliminated those PCI overflows, on what is a crappy VIA chipset.

Im sure the same can be done on other setups with more dsp, by increasing the PCI latency of pulsar to a high value ie 128 using 'TWEAK BIOS' and reducing the PCI latency of all other cards.

Please ask if any other info is required.
I mean if they design a card such as the powerpulsar, it is absolutely ridiculus to run out of pci bandwidth before running out of DSP.

[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-02-16 16:37 ]

[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-02-23 15:23 ]

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Sat Feb 23, 2002 3:28 pm

One other thing to note it the effect disabling USB can have, as you've seen above I had my system working just about perfectly, but I enabled USB to use some devices to do some coursework(an all nighter bit of a killer).
And coming back to do music coursework today, I've found I get more type 0 communication msgs.
I have always been skeptical about USB, and never convinced by it, I mean look how long it to become stable. I really think it has very little place in a studio evironment. But there are so many USB music interfaces out there.

caleb · Post by **caleb** » Sun Feb 24, 2002 11:23 pm

Yeah, I was told to avoid USB devices at all cost with the Pulsar setup. I basically ditched my USB Midi interface.

I think once I decided to base my whole system around the Pulsar cards I'm just going to follow any advice I can get.

I'm yet to experience this PCI overflow error on my system, although my system is very new. I know very little about it, but I'll come back here if/when it happens.

Tony B · Post by **Tony B** » Tue Feb 26, 2002 2:37 am

What is PCI overflow. I never saw that.
System:
Nothing but Luna11 Card Ver 3.01 installed
Gigabyte M0BO Intel 815 Chipset
512 mb memory fully compatible with MOBO(Crucial Technology)
40 gig EIDE WD HD for OS
20 gig IDE WD HD for music files
Creative CD Rom
Generic Floppy drive
Midisport 2x2 USB
HP CD Burner USB.
If it's for music keep it simple!!!!!!!!!!.

milupin · Post by **milupin** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 12:31 pm

remixme and caleb,

you want to disable usb; which means you are not using logic audio 5 as an sequenzer, which has now an usb-dongle (before it was a dongle for the com-port); how can I continue working with logic audio 5 then ?

anyone of you using lap5 with usb-dongle without probs on his cw-machine ?

thanks in advance

thilowski

Post by **garyb** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 1:57 pm

i'm sure it's fine for those with FAST cpu's.

milupin · Post by **milupin** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 7:02 am

hi garyb,

again you... you really gave me a lot good hints; you mention the CPU in the context with usb and pci-master-overflow messages... this is interesting; do you have a quick cpu and usb on your machine ? do you do excessive live-recording of a lot of tracks at the same time ?

I now also think I will have to upgrade my system; before that I will try my cw-cards out on a friends computer which is a pIIItualatin1,2ghz

thanks again garyb

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 9:09 am

Well, I personally don't use logic 5, but I can see that disabling USB is not an option for you. First thing you have to confirm is wether USB is difinetely causing your pulsar card a problem, USB is strange in that some people can have it working absolutly perfectly, while others have a complete nightware with it; a large majority of the time its a driver issue.
But one possibility is to use a cracked copy of Logic 5 (when one appears) I mean at the end of the day you own the software anyway. however this would be a last resort as cracked software can be stable all the way down to totally unusable. But you'd have your usb disabled.
Well, its an option anyway. Best thing is to get the most stable USB drivers for your board, and make sure your pulsar card is not sharing with USB.
The second option, is that some people suggest that using a USB PCI addon card works a lot better than the USB built into the motherboard, and with USB version 2 cards available this may be a useful upgrade to you anyway. Although it has its downside in that it may take up PCI clockcycles. Sorry if this is not much help

milupin · Post by **milupin** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 1:31 pm

hi remixme,

no, indeed I´m interested in every hint I can get; I also think that usb should work, but my extensive testing shows me the opposite; well, as mentioned before, this friday I will get the computer of my friend which is a pIIItualation1,2ghz and a asus tusl2 mobo which is also a recomendation of subhuman; so with this setup I can figure out if it is a problem caused by the way which my mobo handles usb-data

[ This Message was edited by: thilowski on 2002-03-05 13:33 ]