Problems with PCI cards and USB drives

ollix

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Jul 29, 2010
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I previously posted a problem I was having with my ethernet adapter, but I've done more research, tried different things, clean installed Windows XP several times and found out that the problem goes beyond just the ethernet port. I hope someone can help with this.

I installed a new Wetern Digital hard drive in my computer and clean installed Windows XP Home SP1 onto an approximately 120gb partition, then immediately updated it to SP3 using the SP3 update file which I had previously downloaded and burned to a CD. (I've also tried this leaving it at SP1 and not updating, however, and the same exact issues happened.)

My computer contains a Chaintech Apogee 7VJL motherboard, which has onboard sound and ethernet ports as well as a front USB hub with four additional USB ports.

I have three PCI cards installed (starting from the uppermost slot):

A SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum PCI soundcard, which has its own front hub - I use this for sound;

An ATI Radeon graphics card (which the monitor is plugged into)

A D-Link DGE-539T PCI Ethernet adapter, which I use to connect to the internet

(I don't use the motherboard's ethernet and sound ports)

After clean installing XP, installing the chipset drivers for the motherboard ("VIA Service Pack") from the CD that came with it and updating to SP3, the USB ports work properly (they recognize my external storage devices and I can access them through Windows Explorer), but there is no sound and the D-Link doesn't work (since no drivers are installed).

I installed the drivers for the D-Link and restarted, and the D-Link worked properly (I could get on the internet), but the USB ports no longer work. When I plug a USB device in, it lights up and the computer recognizes it, but then says "A problem occurred during hardware installation" (even though the devices were already correctly installed before the D-Link) and the device doesn't show up in My Computer. In Device Manager the devices show up in the USB section as "Unrecognized device" with the yellow error icon and they report Error Code 10 (device cannot start up). This happens every time I choose "Scan for hardware changes" in device manage, even if I manually chose to uninstall the device, unplug it and plug it back in.

I tried manually uninstalling everything under the USB section in Device Manager and restarting the computer; the internet still works perfectly, and the USB devices automatically reinstall, but the same error code 10 issue happens.

If I uninstall the D-Link drivers and restart, the USB ports go back to working perfectly, but of course there's no internet connection.

So I uninstalled the D-Link drivers, restarted (UBS ports work again), then installed the drivers for the Sound Blaster and restarted. The sound works perfectly, but the USB ports stop working again (error code 10).

Then I reinstalled the D-Link drivers and restarted; the sound still works, the USB ports still don't work, and now the D-Link says "A network cable is disconnected" even though the cable is attached.

If I uninstall the Soundblaster drivers and restart, the internet works but the USB ports don't.

BTW, after installing the D-Link for the first time, each time I uninstall the drivers and restart the computer, it automatically detects the card (it didn't do that originally) and prompts to install the drivers.

After installing the Soundblaster the first time, the same thing happened - when I uninstall the drivers and restart, it automatically detects the SB components - except in that case it automatically installs the drivers and the speakers start making noises occasionally (but no sound playback until the computer is restarted). It didn't start auto detecting the SB stuff until I had installed the drivers the first time.

It's important to mention that I still have my old Hard Drive with the original installation of Windows XP on it that I've been using for five years. When I switch the power and data cables from the new hard drive back to the old one, the computer boots with the old XP installation and everything works perfectly as it always has - internet, Soundblaster, and USB ports all work.

So I know for a fact it's a Windows XP setup issue, not a hardware issue or anything to do with the BIOS, cables, etc. etc.

To summarize, it appears that the Soundblaster card is causing the D-Link card to not work work, and both the D-Link card and the Soundblaster card are causing the USB ports to not work (both when the drivers are installed at the same time and when only one or the other is installed).

Does anybody have any advice to figure out what's wrong? I'm not going to open up the computer and phsycailly remove and reinstall the PCI cards because I'm afraid the old XP installation will start having the same problems and then I'll be completely without a computer. :na:
 
So I know for a fact it's a Windows XP setup issue, not a hardware issue or anything to do with the BIOS, cables, etc. etc.
Did you disable on-board sound? That would be the AC97 sound device. (I think you did, but it must be asked).

You might not be old enough to remember that VIA and SoundBlaster have always had problems working together.

Sometimes if you plug the SoundBlaster card in different PCI slots, it might work. Musical chairs of sorts with PCI slots.

Creative SoundBlaster cards historically did not share interrupts and thwarted Windows attempts to force the issue, so Windows issues an error 10. The problems were worse with Win95/98.

When you turn on your computer, if you can make the BIOS show boot information, when the screen gets to devices and the interrupts they are using, press the Pause/Break key and look for IRQ conflicts at the MB level. Press any key to continue booting. Windows does a good job of sorting things out and managing interrupts, but SoundBlaster cards are in a world of their own and they see it as Private Property.

Have you gone into device manager and looked at the resources of these devices and tried to do a manual configuration?
Since you have another drive with XP on it, and everything works, plug it in and record all the resource information on these three cards. Switch drives and compare notes. Something has to be different, and it may be changeable. It may be that they all work because of the original installation order that setup the IRQ hierarchy that caused Windows to keep stepping around the used IRQ of the SB card.

Remove the SoundBlaster card, enable your AC97 on-board sound and see if it works any better.

If it all works perfectly, you have learned who to blame and boycott.


Edit: I'll learn to spell someday.