CMedia 8738 locking up both my systems

[James]

Well, since someone was laying in to Creative, I thought I'd spread the joy.

I have a couple of generic boards (by Eagle) with the CMedia 8738 chip on them. They cost me about USD10 each, but they do everything I ask for (I think the Santa Cruz and the Game Theatre are built on the same chip too).

The only trouble is, they sometimes (ie. about once a week, enough to be really annoying) make XP go BSOD with an IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error, and often it also says the offending module is the cmaudio.sys. MS reckons you get that blue screen when you have a "badly written driver."

This happens both on my dual XP system (Tiger MP board) and my girlfriend's system (SiS735-based board from ECS I think). Now, one's a high quality, expensive board, the other isn't. One has dual 1700+ CPUs, one has a 1GHz CPU. Neither uses a VIA chipset. I have the latest drivers (6.35 if I remember correctly) from Windows Update installed. I've tried moving the cards round, no change.

Any ideas?

And if I can't get them to work, any suggestions for an okay and reasonably cheap replacement for the two boards?

 

[James]

I should mention that these BSODs also went on when I was running Win2K. Don't recall it being a problem under Win98SE though.

 

[The Grammar Police]

I have come across a few of them while out doing my rounds, James. I think I've only seen them with Win95 or 98, and found them to be a little fussy about the way you install the drivers, but mostly OK. I'm surprised to discover that those same chips appear in the Hercules sound cards, as I'd thought that they were just an el-cheapo thing that was what you used when you couldn't get hold of an ESS.

Your best bet is probably a Sound Blaster Vibra 128. They should be available for around $35 in OEM packaging and are vastly more trustworthy than the execrable Sound Blaster Live.

 

[flagreen]

Had the same problem on an Iwill board I used to own. Best solution was disable on board sound. Tiurtle Beach Santa Cruz is a nice card for the money. And they write decent software and drivers which they keep up to date.

 

[CougTek]

I have a couple of generic boards (by Eagle) with the CMedia 8738 chip on them. They cost me about USD10 each, but they do everything I ask for (I think the Santa Cruz and the Game Theatre are built on the same chip too).

I know the Hercules Muse XL use the same chip, but the two cards you named don't IIRC.

The only trouble is, they sometimes (ie. about once a week, enough to be really annoying) make XP go BSOD with an IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error, and often it also says the offending module is the cmaudio.sys. MS reckons you get that blue screen when you have a "badly written driver."

This happens both on my dual XP system (Tiger MP board) and my girlfriend's system (SiS735-based board from ECS I think). Now, one's a high quality, expensive board, the other isn't. One has dual 1700+ CPUs, one has a 1GHz CPU. Neither uses a VIA chipset. I have the latest drivers (6.35 if I remember correctly) from Windows Update installed. I've tried moving the cards round, no change.

Both the ECS K7S5A and the Tiger MP have an onboard LAN chip. Maybe there's a ressources conflict between the LAN and your sound card. Also, have you disabled the AC97 audio in the BIOS settings of the K7S5A? It might help (I think I once had problem because of this). I don't know enough about the Tiger MP to fall into specific details.

The latest version of the driver I found is the 6.32 for Win2K.

 

[Buck]

James, what condition does Device Manager show for your sound solution?

 

[James]

Thanks guys!

Buck :

The usual, "your wonderful hardware is working without a single care in the world. Windows and it are having an intimate relationship, the beauty of which will be the subject of poetry for decades to come. This is the sort of love that ordinary people aspire to but can never achieve." Or "this device is working properly." I forget which.

It's identified as a CMedia 8738 chip and Windows Update downloads, well, updates, for it about once every 6-8 weeks.

Coug,

I'm fairly sure it's not a conflict, as I said I moved it around the PCI slots. Plus my Tiger MP doesn't have built in LAN, I think that's the Thunder. I've tried the card in both the 64bit and the 32bit slots. The only other cards I have on the Tiger are a LAN card and the GF2 GTS in the AGP slot. AC97 audio is disabled - I got the ECS K7S5A with LAN and sound, but the Tiger is without onboard sound.

6.32 is the last driver revision on CMedia's site - but 6.33, 6.34 and 6.35 have since been delivered via Windows Update. Each time it happens I hope that it will have fixed the problem (it is getting better, but it isn't cured).

You're right about the other sound cards - I was getting CMedia and Crystal confused.

 

[Pradeep]

[quote="CougTek]Both the ECS K7S5A and the Tiger MP have an onboard LAN chip. Maybe there's a ressources conflict between the LAN and your sound card. [/quote]

You may be thinking of the Tyan Thunder (dual 10/100) or Tiger MPX with optional 10/100. The TigerMP doesn't have it.

 

[James]

... yeah so I'm flummoxed as well. One machine having problems I could understand, but two different ones on totally different chipsets?

 

[Tea]

Which church did you go to last week?

 

[James]

Apparently the church I went to is that of the BSODing sound card.

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

... yeah so I'm flummoxed as well. One machine having problems I could understand, but two different ones on totally different chipsets?

I've had this problem with this sound chip too. I really think it's drivers: Under Linux, I originally had a problem with the thing freezing a lot, but updating to the latest driver made it work. (No driver update ever made it work properly under Windows; I replaced it with a Sound Blaster Live! which has both better sound quality and better stability. Yeah, the Live!'s drivers used to be unstable, when I first got it, but I haven't had any major problems in the last year or two.)

 

[James]

I'm scared about using a Live! in a dual system. Are my fears still valid? The horror stories a year ago were rife.

 

[Bartender]

Go with Turtle Beach.

 

[Mercutio]

Or better, the Philips.