h/w buffer problems with mbox and xp on a laptop

[spong]

I still haven't got my mbox up and running on my Lap top (dell inspiron 5150). I have tried the following to no avail:

If I increase the buffer I get error 9129 and get told to decrease it
If I decrease the buffer to 512 I ger error 9093 and get told to increase the buffer size.


- disabled the network adaptors
- disabled sound card
- turned off virus software
- changed the driver on the intel IDE controller to "standard dual channel pci IDE controller"
- All IDE drivers are set to "use DMA when available"
plus a bunch of other stuff

However, on the drives I can't see any option to switch to DMA. I am thinking that this may be my problem? Any suggestions?

Thanks

[mackovyak]

What's up man,
I had the same problem, after a TON of research, here's the fix...

Run REGEDIT. Go to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BF\
C1-08002BE10318}

It has subkeys like 0000, 0001, 0002, etc. Normally 0001 is the
primary IDE channel, 0002 the secondary, but other numbers can occur
under certain circumstances. Check the DriverDesc value to see which
one it is.

Delete MasterIdDataChecksum or SlaveIdDataChecksum, depending on
whether the device in question is attached as master or slave, but it
can't actually hurt to delete both. Reboot. The drive DMA capabilities
will be redetected.

Open Device Manager again and check whether the device is now actually
using DMA mode. If so, congratulations, you've made it (at least until
the next time Windows disables DMA).
--------------------------------------------------------------------

My addition, make sure you go through each subkey 0000, 0001, 0002,
ect and delete all of the MasterIDDataChecksum and SlaveIdDataChecksum
entries.

This cleared the problem right up.

[jazzmandan]

Please be sure that you have created a backup\restore point in your XP system restore file before you try this fix. I see where Mack... is going in that you have to be sure that the DMA is actually functioning, but the registry hacks can be tricky.

Good luck

Jazzmandan

[spong]

wow much improved but still not very stable. I actully managed to get through the soundcheck session a couple of times b4 I got the 9093 error. I couldn't even get one track to play (in a separate session) before.

How do I check if DMA is working? I still don't get any reference to DMA in the device manager under "drives". The only place I see DMA is under the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers in the device manager.

cheers

I am happy I can actually use it now!

[jazzmandan]

You are looking in the right place, in Device Manager, Under IDE ATA/ATAPI you will see your Primary IDE channel, Right Click to see its properties and there under Advanced Settings you will see not only the "DMA if Available" but also "Current Transfer Mode Ultra DMA 5" for both Device 0 and Device 1 (... at least this is how I have my dual drive system is configured). The trick is to actually have the "Current Transfer Mode" accepting the DMA 5 setting.

To get the proper settings I have seen advice for how to configure in the BIOS, but the Registry tweak is new to me. If it works that is great we will have to remember this one.

jazzmandan

[spong]

My current transfer modes are as follows: (as in device manager)

on primary IDE - device 0 = ultra dma mode 2, device 1 = not applicable
on secondary IDE - device 0 = ultra dma mode 5, device 1 = not applicable

any suggestions on how to make everything dma mode 5 (if needed)?

thanks for all the help I really appreciate it.

[crizdee]

Hello,

I am suffering this exact same problem with my sony laptop 2.8 and mbox!! i have tried all the suggestions above! but no change, i keep getting the same error messages as spong!! i can't even run a song with no audio files!? total failure, even re installed everything!!!

Sorry spong, didn't mean to hijack your post, but i'm getting fedup with this problem and i can't find a fix after 4 days of trying!!!!

Regards

Chris

[jazzmandan]

My system may be different but I’ll lay out how it works for me and maybe it will give you a clue.

I have two internal hard drives in my Dell Dimension 4600. I have them on the same cable configured in a Master Slave arrangement.

When I view my configurations in Device Manager I get:

on primary IDE - device 0 = ultra dma mode 5, device 1 = ultra dma mode 5
on secondary IDE - device 0 = ultra dma mode 2, device 1 = not applicable

I interpret this to mean that both my Hard Drives are on the primary IDE and both are set up to run as DMA 5. My CD ROM is on the secondary IDE and it is in the slower DMA 2 mode.

Keep in mind the drives will only run in the fastest DMA mode that they are capable and that is supported by your BIOS. My Dell is relatively new and the two drives are also both Ultra ATA/100 7200 RPM. Unfortunately, the bios will not always properly configure the drives by default, and it has been reported that sometimes the machine will change and downgrade the transfer rate if it has a minor intermittent read problem.

Just as a last note, until I got my second internal hard drive setup as DMA 5, I had nothing both problems (HW Buffer) with PT. I had to force it to DMA 5 in the BIOS by initially deleting all the “self configuration” in the BIOS and then allowing it to redetect itself. “does that make sense…”. This could have been equivalent to the Registry tweaks that Mack… advised.

Keep working at it, having PT running smooth is worth the effort. Unfortunately, getting the HD transfer is just one of the many many tweaks you may have to work through. And don't even mention SP2!

jazzmandan