First question: Can anyone just explain to me the main differences between a 40 and an 80 way IDE ribbon cable (I know the obvious 40 of course...LOL) and why I can use the 40 way EITHER way round but only use the 80 way ONE way round.......it has just confused the hell out of me for an hour!!!!!!!! Second question: PCI modems (standard V90 56K). These are all driven in software right, and therefore the software installs and generates an internal 'COM port' such as 3/4/5 etc and assigns the driver for it... WHY on earth can I never get one of these dam things working......everytime I have installed one, when I goto to test it OR use it.....it just LOCKS the whole PC up - then I have to restart etc.... I believe there is a conflict somewhere when I try to open it......incompatibility between the software and drivers/com ports etc..... Can anyone point me in a direction as to why this ALWAYS happens...... Cheers.........it may just be because I am stooopid...LOL
Well found a good bit of info on IDE stuff at http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf.htm just in case anyone is interested..... Still no joy on the PCI modem issue......bugging me
The prancing sheep has conquered..... Thanks for all the advice....it helped me loads.........sarcasam....cool it..... Well I have sorted it NEARLY but now I am trying to discover WHY????? I removed my soundcard (and software/drivers) and re-installed the modem......BINGO up she came, diags talked with it and dialed out and that pc is where I am posting from...... NOW I am trying to discover WHAT was the conflict between the soundcard and modem......gotta feeling it is IRQ connected (although the modem says it supports IRQ sharing)..... But I believe the soundcard IS ALWAYS active from boot up, so that IRQ is in use, so the IRQ sharing could mean that, it could be the reason the pc was freezing up... I disabled the IRQ share option - but no difference, I think I need to manually change the IRQ the modem/soundcard is uses so they are not setup with the same IRQ's........ Oh yes Oriphus, could not agree with you more....they do my swede in.....that is why I always recommend externals using COM 1 or COM 2....... Still gettin there slowly......LOL
I had a 56K once, then it pissed me off so much that I got broadband and I have never had a prob since!
Yes that may cure it..... It is actually a PC that I am setting up and selling on, so the broadband is not viable.... I do not have broadband as I do not use the phone line OFTEN enough to qualify for the extra expense.... Granted the speed is blistering compared to the crappy 56K, but it gets me by.....
Make sure that you have the COM ports (a) enabled in BIOS and (b) correctly set (use the defaults to be sure) for irqs and such
Thanks, been down that route..... Well just a small update: Both the sound card and modem were on auto (for irq assignment) and were assigned the same irq......yes found the problem..... NO NO NO it wasn't arrrrghhhh!!!!!...... Altered the irq's manually in the bios, to 2 seperate/free irq's.... made no difference....windows picked up on the different irq's (in system manager), no conflicts - everything looked good.... Went to interrogate the modem (diags), pc just freezed up..... So I thought I would delve a little bit deeper and go back to square one..... Removed both cards/drivers etc... Inserted just the modem and installed drivers etc.... Worked like a charm, interrogated the modem fine and setup the dialer and hooked up to the net...terrific.... Installed the sound card then........yes you can guess......ice cubed again......I have to laugh (with tears also).... So I looked into disabling some of the devices in system.... The modem also included a serial voice driver which was installed in the sound/video controllers, so I disabled that - no difference.. I then tried to disable drivers within the sound/video controllers one by one......when I came to the main sound card - it froze.... So my problem lies within the soundcard/drivers etc, but how do I eliminate that dam pixie...... I proved this by purchasing a £2 cheapo soundcard from a car boot sale......installed WITH the modem and voila....running like a dream......so the answer is use that soundcard and use the other as a futuristic coaster alongside my dvd's.......NAH, I want to try and nail this.....vendetta now.....the sheep has got his warface on...... The sound card is a creative vibra 128 which I have NEVER had any probs with before and it works a treat on it's own....downloaded various drivers etc from creative....but still no cigar...... I am going to get to the bottom of this if it kills me... I now know that it is the soundcard that is causing the issue. Now whether it is BIOS based OR windows based, I am unsure, but I believe it has to be windows cos bill gates is a tosser.... My next step is to find the .inf files related to the soundcard and interrupt them before they are loaded OR find them in the INF folder and remove them manually....so I can at least highlight the conflicting thing.... I know it is not the COM/IRQ now but software related........ I'll keep you posted for those who are interested........ BTW thankyou for your input Praetor.....have a good one...cos it'll be better than mine.......god I can't help laughing at this...LMFAO
Oh yes........ Just also trying to get a pcmcia ethernet card installed on my laptop.....but it has screwed with my system.ini file and removed some.vxd files and dlls.........but that is another story...... Can't wait to get back to work....LOL
Well the ethernet do dar is up and running and my 2 pc's are chopsing away at each other..... Just need to figure this soundcard bitch out now....ah well back to it I suppose....
BTW If you didnt know, soundcards can use up to three IRQs (soundblaster ones) so slot the soundcard on the PCI slot that shares IRQS with the least number of other slots, on ASUS boards, this is slot 3.
I didn't know that......hmmm something to ponder on... Thanks for that Praetor........I should of known that as I have been reviewing the irq's of both modem and soundcard.....why did I miss it...... Shall have a look into that...cheers
Is the modem a voice/fax ete modem? I have noticed that some silly voice modems will take over sound card settings. You can turn this feature off or twick it to work. I have a IFU 56k voice fax modem with out any trouble on a Win98 machine. It doesn't reconize it, but with a disk and in the add hard ware section It reconizes and works fine.
Prisoner I think you in the right neighbourhood there.... Yes it also has a voice modem etc on it, and this loads itself under the sound/audio controllers section, therefore (as you say) can (possibly) cause a conflict.... However I can disable this but has no effect....now if I try and disable one of the devices(of the soundcard) this is where it hangs....this ONLY happens whilst the modem PCI card is connected....the soundcard operates super if plugged in on it's own... I am sure it has something to do with that (as you say) but I think it is the soundcards compatibility with the modem rather than vice versa.... Thankyou for your input, I am glad alot of people are suggesting things that I am also thinking of....this means I am not being a complete idiot by overlooking the obvious points.... Cheers guys, much appreciated......I am gonna get there......grrrrrr!
hi all i found i had a problem with my audigy platinum live drive soundcard! i have 6 pci slots and the first and last share! so i moved it to number 5 and modem to 2 all fine! also get the latest updates/drivers to as old soundcards audigy and alike dont like xp! thats why we have audigy 2 now! yes to modems using sound on the system but you can choose which to use in settings! also turn off [IF YOU CAN?] onboard sound! i have onboard 6.1! you may be able to disable in bios i can! thx... Thx.... EDIY dont know if anyone mentioned the 40/80 eide cables!?! but 40 can only transfer at ATA66 speed and 80 wires can go at ATA-100/133/ speed! which makes a big diff! to ripping and alike! Thx.. JUST A QUIKY - WAAAHAY !!!!!! check my sig! i got a new CPU barton! nice!_X_X_X_X_X_[small]XP 3000 /BARTON [NOT O/C-ED YET ! LOL...] <---NEW CHIP! LIKE A ROCKET! A7V8X SATA150/RAID 2x80 gig [Bios 1012] HERCULES 3D PROPHET [9700 Pro] XMS Corsair Platinum pc3500 2x512 1024 meg ENERMAX PSU 550watts
The IDE website Baabaa mentions in the second post is really good. I have been having reconition problems with one hard drive on a 80 IDE cable and now that I think about I think I put it on the silver (Slave) terminal and not the end black terminal. I have the jumper set on Master, not cable select. Cable select is evil, I have never gotten it to work. I am betting on the voice modem errors, I have an on board sound card, so hard to remove. But playing with the voice setting in software or moving the jumper on the actual Modem card might work for you.
