X-Sender: gigagon@mail.cyberglobe.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 23:47:12 -0400 To: sharss@teleport.com (Sharon S. Shepperd) From: Gigagon Data Subject: Re: tgui9680 freezes often revisited I'll do my best, and what I will say might sound crazy... Whenever you find a (!) exclamation mark next to any device, it means this is the actual driver that is working, or detected in Win95, and is either working partially, with 'half-drivers' (i know it sounds goofy, but just try to imagine), or a little bit from the 'false drivers' (the device you think is working, without the (!), but actually isn't completely). The reason why your video has been screwing up from day one, is because of this. You have never had the tgui9680 installed properly in the first place. Until this is solved, you will be plagued with problems forever. Is it solvable? Yes. How? This is the puzzle, since there are a few hundred different solutions, and I may be unable to tell you all of them by email. If you are brave to tackle my explainations to come (or get someone to help, since there is no way i can 1-2-3 these explanations), then go ahead: Win95 had a problem giving the card a nice home to sit into. All devices, no matter what, requires a IRQ address. Your mouse may be IRQ4. Your modem may be IRQ3. Your sound card IRQ5 or 10. Your video card, the tgui9680, can be anything of IRQ9,10,11 or 12. It's gonna be one of those 4. If you keep getting (!) on a device you are trying to put in (like the tgui9680 video card), it is because either all 4 of these IRQ's have already been taken *or* win95 has a problem seeing the IRQ that is actually free, to assign to the card. There are ways to force this. The first thing you should do, is do your best to manually give our IRQs to things in your computer so that win95 doesn't choose any one it feels like it. Namely, go into your mainboard bios (CMOS SETUP UTILITY), and in your PNP/PCI CONFIGURATION, have: PNP OS Installed : Yes Resources Controlled By : Manual Reset Configuration Data : Disable IRQ-3 assigned to : Legacy ISA IRQ-4 assigned to : Legacy ISA IRQ-5 assigned to : Legacy ISA IRQ-7 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP IRQ-9 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP IRQ-10 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP <-- Legacy ISA if you want to enable Creative Labs IDE IRQ-11 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP IRQ-12 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP IRQ-14 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP IRQ-15 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP DMA-0 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP DMA-1 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP DMA-3 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP DMA-5 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP DMA-6 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP DMA-7 assigned to : PCI/ISA PnP If you have a mouse with the plug that is 9pin, we want this to go to COM1 IRQ4, and if there is only ONE modem to your computer, we want it to COM2 IRQ3. If you have one of those lousy Internal PnP things, better get cracking and figure out how you will force it to COM2 IRQ3 (definitely have to disable it on the maiboard, and set jumpers on the modem). NEXT - The sound card is to occupy IRQ5, and as well as IRQ10 if it supports Wave Synthesis or IDE controller. Put the LPT1 on IRQ7. Unless you have other weird stuff in your machine, IRQ 9,10,11,12 are now technically FREELY AVAILABLE, and one of these can nest and welcome your tgui9680 card. But let's say you are weird = and have a scanner card that you know for sure occupies IRQ11, then you would have set: IRQ-11 assigned to : Legacy ISA So IRQ11 is definitely *not* going to be a reserve space for other stuff. Note, how we leave most things as PCI/ISA PnP, since other normal things like harddisk drive controller or Numeric Processor, are things that are automatically isolated and addressed normally by Win95 as you use it. Forcing the sound card to take IRQ5 (where it supposed to belong), at this point, the video (or anything else) is unlikely to conflict with it, since IRQ7 always gets mapped with the LPT, and what you *don't* want is the video card to take some stoopid irq like 3 or 4. A PCI device cannot occupy a IRQ that has 'Legacy ISA' attached to it. The basis of this game, is to reserve all IRQ 9,10,11,12 spots for PCI only devices. If your modem and sound card is occupying these spots - not only do u make less homes available, but there are actually empty ones (like IRQ3,4,5,7) that are *not* being used, and wasted. Example, if your IRQ3 is free, and your modem is using IRQ10, then you're stupid for not putting the modem at IRQ3. I keep running into 'computer experts' that say 'PnP is so perfect, we should let it use whatever address it wants to occupy', but they become the ones messing with their machines for hours while I use my computer flawlessly. BE CAREFUL, if your indeed have moved your modem, you may have to reinstall it, as well as resolving your internet connection. So please do this only after you have replied to all your precious email friends, because you might be internet-less for a few bits. WHEN THIS ALL has been solved, now you turn on your computer, and go thru the autodetecting and proper software installation of the tgui9680 card, with the 5.00.28 drivers. Win95 does its best to compensate for devices that fight for the same spot, but when it cannot, it's your job to do it manually, since Win95 is no where perfect. We ourselves have had this exact problem with the tgui9440 and the tgui9680 in win95 in the past many times, but in all cases, were SOLVED, and therefore a solution always exists. I do know for a fact, when Win98 comes out in a few months, people like you won't ever have to endure this nightmare again. We were trying to installed and test a new product, the Zoltrix TV Max PCI card. It would not install correctly. We tried everything, the above combination of flipping IRQ ports, trying different versions of drivers, spending days on the thing, nothing. Just wouldn't work. Then we just installed Win98, and -presto- fixed and all, no yellow (!) anywhere... Tech Supp. Dedicated to serving the 514 montreal area and neighbours ( 5 1 4 ) 9 9 0 - 7 7 8 7 http://www.anime.net/~gigagon/ http://www.anime.net/~gigagon/trident.htm <-- for trident video The Gigagon Corporation (318627-0) Canada At 04:07 PM 10/12/97 -0700, you wrote: The message under this one is where I thought it was fixed. ------------------------------------------------- No, something is still wrong. I thought it was ok. Should my monitor say "unknown monitor". Yesterday I tried to set it up in Display as the Packard Bell Monitor and the screen was black after the reboot. I was able to undo this in Safe Mode. I tested the graphics program after I thought it was working ok by putting the image back on the Desktop. Still, when i clicked on Netscape and then went out, the screen was screwed up like yesterday. Then after that when I went into System Properties, there was ?Other Devices -> ?PCI Card -> PCI Properties ->Driver ->said No Drivers installed for this Device. Course, then it wanted to install it again. I tell you, I or rather the computer is going around in circles. I took the image off the Desktop. ---------------------------------------------------- I think I have it working now. I had typed out the email message that is between the dashes and then kept trying different things and think I got it. hahaha What I did was go into Display Adapter in System Properties and removed both copies of of 966/.....then I hit Refresh. It put one copy back (the one without the yellow !). I then did the same thing with my extra copies of my modem. Again hit Refresh. It just left the one copy that I had left there. Then I shut down the computer. When I turned it back on and when it said it was installing new hardware and gave me a choice of not installing it and NOT BOTHERING ME AGAIN, I clicked it. It then took me into my Desktop, I opened System Properties and everything looks perfect. And, so far, is working perfect. I have been on the Internet and the screen was not screwed up when I got off. ------------------------------------------------------- I did as directed -- changed the graphics board slot, reinstalled -- and still have both copies of: 9660/968x/938x/9382.1, Linear Accelerated for PCI (v5.00.28) One copy still has the yellow !. I did this twice. Is that the correct driver I am supposed to be using. Yes, I deleted both copies out of the Display Adapter in System Properties before I reinstalled. After the first installation, it will say it's going to restart the computer, but when it restarts I believe it is then putting in the second copy. Course, once it said it was looking for installing the monitor, and then, somewhere along the line of the last few days, it put in another copy of my modem with a yellow explanation mark. Crazy! --------------------------------------------------------------