SB Live! and USB IRQ conflicts

[gwheeler]

Here are my system specs:
Celeron 450A
Abit BH6 MB w/nv Bios
128MB RAM
Western Digital 4.3GB and 1.6GB UDMA-33 HD's
Creative DVD Drive
Sony Spressa CD-RW Drive
SB Live! Value
STB Velocity 4400 (TNT)
Linksys EtherFast 10/100 NIC
Saitek X-36 USB joystick-throttle combo
Win98 with DirectX 7.0a

I have had nothing but trouble with the onboard USB controller. It will always pick
the same IRQ as the SB Live, even when I disable the controller IRQ, force the SB's PCI slot to use a certain IRQ, reboot, then re-enable the USB controller. If I disable the controller's IRQ in the BIOS Windows will still assign it the same IRQ as the sound card. This is very vexing, because when I have the joystick plugged in and do a cold boot it will often hang while trying to initialize the kernel, displaying a blank screen with blinking cursor in the corner.
I must then reboot with the manual switch,
and usually the second time I get into the OS
before getting a blue screen of death. If it's just one, I can continue normally with all system functions. Sometimes two or three
pop up and hang the system, and sometimes the OS loads but seems to be hung up proccessing something, as it responds to input about 5 seconds after it happens. Oddly enough the boot up problems
seem to be influenced by the temperature
of the system, since after it's warmed up for
a little while I can usually do a reboot without incident. If the joysticks are not plugged into the USB port during bootup then
I don't get the system hang with blinking cursor. Obviously this is driving me nuts and I have upgraded to the latest BIOS to no effect. Is there anyone out there who knows of any specific issue with these components?
Or at least how to separate the IRQ's with that finicky Abit USB controller?

Thanks in advance,

Graham Wheeler

[Ygor]

Have you tried a different slot for the SBLive?

[Colonel Casio]

Have you enabled IRQ Steering? This allows PCI devices to share IRQs without conflicts.

[boszot]

I have no experiance w/bh6 boards, but in the bx6-r2 there is an option in the bios to disable USB. Also, if you don't need all the serial ports u can disable 1 or both in the same area. In win98 I've had beter luck by allowing my bx6 bios to contol resourses through sys properties. The SB live can also be forced to share w/printer irq 7 for dos compatability(they use 2 irq's, if you dont pay dos mode, recomend u disable). HTH

[gwheeler]

Currently I have IRQ steering enabled,both COM ports disabled to free up extra
IRQ's, and the legacy Sound Blaster emulation
option disabled. I forgot to mention that my brother has an almost identical system
except he uses an MX300 sound card. I haven't
looked at his IRQ setup in great detail but I know he's been having the same symptoms and has unplugged his joystick. I guess my next step will be to jump on Saitek tecch support. Thanks for all the timely replies!

Graham

[This message has been edited by gwheeler (edited 02-03-2000).]

[TonyMan]

Make sure you have the SB Emulation disabled unless you need DOS support. This will free up an IRQ. Creative told me to do it this way:

1. Restart in DOD mode

2. Edit the autoexec.bat to rem out the SBEINIT line (must be done in DOS).

3. Reboot to Windows.

4. In Device Manager go to Creative Miscellaneous Devices.

5. Double click Creative SB Live! SB 16 Emulation.

6. Palce a check in "Disable in this Hardware Profile" and remove the check from "Exists in all Hardware Profiles".

Reboot.

[phecky]

I have a friend experiencing similar probs. with a Tyan MB. Tech help told him he'll have to reinstall the OS cause USB has to be enabled in BIOS BEFORE this is done. In other words, he should have started up with just video card installed, checked BIOS settings and USB enable, then the operating system, then start adding his other cards. In his case he did not enable USB until after he had everything else up and running. According to Tyan, this can make a difference and Microsoft is aware of the prob. Doesn't make sense to me, cause what's the guy to do if you add USB at a later date cause you just don't need at present? Reinstall the OS??? Bull!!!!!!

[Colonel Casio]

Another idea. Does your BIOS support assigning specific IRQs to specific PCI slots? I used that technique to help sort out some IRQ problems.