Diamond Ultra Kit 8000 (250-0208) Troubleshooting Q & A Faxback Doc. # 33633 Hardware Issues: Q. I have one of your MMKits with an IDE CD-ROM, after I installed it and restarted the CD-ROM driver line in the CONFIG.SYS fails to load and says the device is not found. A1. First verify that the CD-ROM has power. Try ejecting the tray on the CD-ROM drive. If it does not open, make sure a live power plug is connected to the back of the CD-ROM drive. If you've already this, you may want to switch the plug with a known good one. For example swap the hard drive and CD-ROM power cables. A2. Next, check that you have connected the data (flat grey ribbon) cable between the sound card/controller card properly. The ribbon cable will be striped or dotted on one edge. This edge corresponds to "pin 1." All IDE CD-ROM drives should be connected to the 40-pin interface marked IDE on the sound/controller card. Pin one on the interface will be marked with the number "1" and pin one on the CD-ROM will be the side closest to the power cable. Match the pin 1 on the ribbon cable to the CD-ROM drive and sound/ controller card. A3. If all physical connections are correct and power is applied, you may have a conflict with an existing IDE controller. The controllers used for the IDE CD-ROM drives use the secondary IDE interface. Many new motherboards and some peripheral controllers include a secondary IDE controller. A conflict will arise from the two controllers active in the same system, resulting in the IDE CD-ROM not being found. One controller or the other must be disabled. There are two options in this case: A. Leave the CD-ROM connected to the sound/controller card shipped with the MMKit and disable the motherboard/peripheral controller. This is usually done by configuring a jumper or CMOS setting or both. Verify this with the motherboard/controller manual. B. If you cannot disable the motherboard/controller card secondary IDE interface, you can connect the CD-ROM to it and disable the MMKit's sound/controller card interface. You will need to connect the ribbon cable between the CD-ROM drive and the motherboard/controller card interface. To disable the Diamond sound card interface, remove the "DEVICE=C:\DIAMOND\CDSETUP.SYS" line in the CONFIG.SYS file. To disable the Diamond controller card, remove it from the system. Q. I plugged your MMKit hardware into my system and now my system won't boot up. A1. Verify all the physical connections for the sound card and CD-ROM. Check to see that another peripheral or device was not dislodged during your installation. A2. Try plugging the sound card into another free slot and restarting the system. Q. I plugged your MMKit 8000 hardware into my system and now my system hangs during the power on self test (POST). A. Take the sound card out of the system and reboot. Enter the motherboard's CMOS setup. Check the available options to see if you have the ability to enable the BIOS for a "Plug and Play Operating System (OS)." If so, turn this option on. Problems With the DOS Installation Q. When I run your install.exe program and choose either the automatic or custom option the system hangs during the "Determining System Hardware" phase. A. By default, the installation program for Diamond's Multimedia Kits will run a detection program to determine possible resource conflicts. This program may hang when interrogating some systems. The solution is to run the install program with the /n switch, which bypasses the detection routine. Use the following syntax: INSTALL /N Q. When I run my DOS game, I don't get any sound at all. -OR- I get music but no sound at all. -OR- I get sound effects but no music. A1. Make sure that you are choosing the correct type of sound card in the application's sound card setup. The sound cards included with Diamond's Multimedia Kits are all Sound Blaster/Pro compatible. Some applications have only one Sound Blaster option, if this is the case choose it. Some applications have multiple Sound Blaster models listed, in this case choose the option that supports "Sound Blaster," "Sound Blaster Pro," or "Sound Blaster/Compatibles." A2. Verify the IRQ, DMA and Port Address settings you have defined in the application's setup program match those that you have set for the sound card. Your current DOS sound settings will be defined on the SET BLASTER= line of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The line should appear similar to the following: SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4 Where "A" is the port address, "I" is the IRQ, "D" is the DMA, and "T4" sets the Sound Blaster Pro compatibility. Some applications may not support all of the settings that Diamond's sound boards support. If this is the case, you will need to run the "SNDINIT" program and reconfigure the settings. This is the configuration program for the sound card; it will be located in the \DIAMOND directory. This is the default directory, and if you changed it during the install, adjust accordingly. Please make sure to run the configuration program from whatever directory it resides in. Failure to do so will generate multiple .CFG files, which define the sound card's settings. This can cause sporadic problems, see next item. Q. I've tried running your sound card configuration program to change the addresses the board is using, but when I restart they didn't change. A. You may have run the configuration program, "SNDINIT," from a directory other than the one where the program resides. This will generate a new .CFG in the wrong directory. You must run the configuration program from the directory it resides, \DIAMOND unless changed during the installation. This will update the proper .CFG file. Q. I've plugged my joystick into your sound card, but it doesn't seem to work in my DOS games. A. The joystick port on the sound card is not enabled. Run the sound card configuration program, "SNDINIT," and toggle the joystick port to "ON." Q. How do I change the drive letter assigned to my CD-ROM drive? A. Add the "/L:?" switch to the MSCDEX.EXE line in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Where "?" is the drive letter you wish to assign. Keep in mind to adjust your "LASTDRIVE=" statement. Here is a sample line, in this case the CD-ROM is being assigned to drive "X:": D:\DIAMOND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /M:12 /L:X Windows 3.1/3.11 Q. I cannot access the CD-ROM drive from Windows -OR- I don't see a drive representation for the CD-ROM in File Manager, but the drive works in DOS. A. Make sure your CONFIG.SYS file has a "LASTDRIVE=?" statement. Where "?" is on drive letter after your last logical drive. The CD-ROM should default to the last logical drive letter. For example, if you have one hard drive "C:", then the CD-ROM will default to "D:". So you will need "LASTDRIVE=E". Q. I started up Windows 3.1x for the first time after installing your MMKit and my system locked up. A. The IRQ assigned to the sound card for the Windows environment may be conflicting with another device. Or you may have a PCI bus motherboard which assigns an IRQ to the PCI slots. Restart the machine and boot to DOS. Run the sound card configuration program, "SNDINIT." Change the IRQ assignment for the sound card in the Windows Sound System mode. Q. I started up Windows 3.1x for the first time after installing your MMKit and my startup sound is stuttering/repeating/looping. A. This is also indicative of an IRQ conflict. Run the "Diamond Hardware Setup" icon in the "Diamond Multimedia" group. Change the Windows Sound System IRQ setting to another choice. Q. I started up Windows 3.1x after installing the MMKit and my startup sound and all my .WAV files sound like a chipmunk... -OR- ...distorted... -OR- ...too fast/slow. A1. Run the "Diamond Hardware Setup" icon in the "Diamond Multimedia" group. Toggle the "Single Mode DMA" option. Close the Setup panel and restart Windows. A2. Try increasing the DMA buffer size. Open the Windows Control Panel and choose the "Drivers" icon. Choose the "Diamond Audio Driver" and click the "Setup" button. Under the "Advanced Setting" section, raise the buffer size setting. Default is 32Kb, maximum is 64Kb. A3. Verify that your ISA bus speed is approximately 8MHz. The sound board is designed to operate at the standard bus speed - 8MHz. Running a faster ISA bus speed can cause distortion. Some motherboards will allow you to change the ISA bus speed via the CMOS setup. There may be a Classic/AT/ISA bus speed option. Some may list a specific number, while others may list in the "clock/n" convention, where "clock" is the external processor speed and "n" is some integer divisor. Set the value to be as close to 8MHz as possible. Q. Regardless of where I play a MIDI (.MID) file from, I get about a second of sound and then a message that says, "The MIDI device is in use." Wave (*.WAV) sounds are fine, though. A. Check the SYSTEM.INI file. Under the [Drivers] section, make sure there is an entry that reads: timer=timer.drv If it is not present, add this line and restart the system. Q. I try to play wave (*.WAV) or MIDI (*.MID) files and I get a message that either "The Wave device is in use," or "The MIDI device is in use." A. Check the SYSTEM.INI file. Under the [boot] section, make sure there is an entry that reads: drivers=. You should have the following phrase somewhere on this line, "mmsystem.dll" If it is missing, add this phrase in. Q. I tried to use the Mixer controls to adjust the volume, but there aren't any slider controls. A. Check the SYSTEM.INI file. Under the [boot] section, make sure there is an entry that reads: drivers=. You should have the following phrase somewhere on this line, "msmixmgr.dll" If it is missing, add this phrase in. (BKL-07/03/96)