AT-GPIB/TNT PnP and Sound Blaster 16 Clashing

[Tims]

Hi Group

The Story is:
I have had a AT-GPIB/TNT PnP on a old Pentium 75/Win 95 Machine doing some testing, and havn't had a problem with it.
I now wanted to install a Creative Sound Blaster (Vibra) 16, also PnP ISA, card for basic audio analysis measurements.
The problem is when the Sound Blaster card is installed the PnP BIOS doesn't recognise the GPIB card at all, even with PnP
disabled.

Has anybody seen this before?
Could it be that the PC can only handle 2 ISA PnP cards (there is also a PnP network card)?
Would I be better of with a PCI SB card.

Any help would be gratefull

Tim S

[Mark Eckdahl]

Tim,

It might be an IRQ problem. AT-GPIB cards are not supported in NI's newest
drivers, so they have a buy-back program where you can get a new PCI-GPIB
card for half price, if you trade in your AT card. That would solve your
problem, but cost $250, the PCI card is worth getting.

Here is the form:
http://www.ni.com/support/trouble/gpib/upgra_us.pdf


Timothy John Streeter wrote:
>Hi Group>>The Story is:>I have had a AT-GPIB/TNT PnP on a old Pentium 75/Win
95 Machine doing some testing,
>and havn't had a problem with it.>I now wanted to install a Creative Sound
Blaster (Vibra) 16, also PnP ISA, card for
>basic audio analysis measurements.>The problem is when the Sound Blaster
card is installed the PnP BIOS doesn't recognise
>the GPI
B card at all, even with PnP>disabled.>>Has anybody seen this before?>Could
it be that the PC can only handle 2 ISA PnP cards (there is also a PnP network
>card)?>Would I be better of with a PCI SB card.>>Any help would be gratefull>>Tim
S>>

[Dieter S]

Tim clearly stated that he had an AT-GPIB/TNT(PnP) board, not the obsolete AT-GPIB board. Advising him to upgrade to a PCI version of his GPIB board, without resolving the resource conflict that is causing the original problem, is somewhat premature. He should be able to resolve the resource problem without updating his GPIB hardware, but if he can't, then he may want to look into that upgrade that you suggested. He may want to visit the GPIB Support page (http://www.ni.com/support/gpibsupp.htm) at ni.com for some troubleshooting advice.

For upgrade inquiries, Tim would want to contact a member of the National Instruments Sales Team (http://www.ni.com/contact.htm), but I think he'll be able to resolve the conflict without resorting to an upgrade.

[Mike T]

Tim,

I had similar struggles with a 1995 vintage Pentium. My ISA GPIB conflicted with PCI sound card and PCI network card. It
tooks me hours to hit upon a sequence of installing the cards, and manually locking in the resources, in order to get them all
working.

Some general suggestions: get back to a configuration that works, say without the sound card. Make note of the resources for
the network card and GPIB card. While your there, examine the other possibilities. You can select other GPIB resource
configurations and see what the I/O range, INT and DMA settings would be. For example, some GPIB resource configurations
don't use INT and DMA at all. Write all of this down.

Then install the sound card, without the GPIB. See what resources it wants, and explore what other configurations it might be
happy with. Sound cards are tricky, because they usually use a lot of resources because they have a lot of functions: wave,
midi, mixer, etc. Some also have "legacy drivers" that mimic the older DOS based sound cards, for backwards compatibility
with games. You may be able to install the sound card and then remove some of these "extra drivers."

With sound card working, and the network card working, reinstall the NI488 software. Then power down and install the GPIB
card. Reboot. You may get lucky and everything just works.

More likely, the GPIB will work and the sound card won't. Go check the GPIB card resources and you'll probably see that the
NI488 drivers snagged one or more of the INT or DMA channels that the sound card was using. Try a different GPIB
configuration, or manually edit the DMA and INT settings to NONE. Also check for I/O range conflicts. (Consult your written
list, because the conflicts won't show in Device Manger -- since the sound card's not working it's not using any resources!)

Hopefully, by telling Device Manager to NOT use Automatic Settings, you can get the GPIB working and still leave enough
resources available for the sound card. Which you will probably have to go back and reinstall, from scratch. Possibly a few
times before you get everything to fit.

How bad do you want that sound card ? :~)

Isn't (Microsoft) plug and play wonderful?

p.s. you might also consider using CMOS setup to disable any motherboard resources you are not using, for example a COM port
that's not connected to anything. Remember to write down EVERYTHING, you do so you can put it back if you have to.

Good luck!

--
Best Regards,
Mike T

Mike Tranchemontagne
Consulting Applications Engineer
TeraComm, Inc.
148 Main Street
Building A, 3rd Floor
North Andover, MA 01845
877-900-TERA (8372)
978-557-9490 (FAX)
603-598-4773 (Direct Line and Cell)


Timothy John Streeter wrote:

> Hi Group
>
> The Story is:
> I have had a AT-GPIB/TNT PnP on a old Pentium 75/Win 95 Machine doing some testing, and havn't had a problem with it.
> I now wanted to install a Creative Sound Blaster (Vibra) 16, also PnP ISA, card for basic audio analysis measurements.
> The problem is when the Sound Blaster card is installed the PnP BIOS doesn't recognise the GPIB card at all, even with PnP
> disabled.
>
> Has anybody seen this before?
> Could it be that the PC can only handle 2 ISA PnP cards (there is also a PnP network card)?
> Would I be better of with a PCI SB card.
>
> Any help would be gratefull
>
> Tim S

[Tims]

Hi Mike

I ended up swapping the ISA bus soundcard for a PCI bus card which fixed all my problems.

Tim

Mike Tranchemontagne wrote:

> Tim,
>
> I had similar struggles with a 1995 vintage Pentium. My ISA GPIB conflicted with PCI sound card and PCI network card. It
> tooks me hours to hit upon a sequence of installing the cards, and manually locking in the resources, in order to get them all
> working.
>
> Some general suggestions: get back to a configuration that works, say without the sound card. Make note of the resources for
> the network card and GPIB card. While your there, examine the other possibilities. You can select other GPIB resource
> configurations and see what the I/O range, INT and DMA settings would be. For example, some GPIB resource configurations
> don't use INT and DMA at all. Write all of this down.
>
> Then install the sound card, without the GPIB. See what resources it wants, and explore what other configurations it might be
> happy with. Sound cards are tricky, because they usually use a lot of resources because they have a lot of functions: wave,
> midi, mixer, etc. Some also have "legacy drivers" that mimic the older DOS based sound cards, for backwards compatibility
> with games. You may be able to install the sound card and then remove some of these "extra drivers."
>
> With sound card working, and the network card working, reinstall the NI488 software. Then power down and install the GPIB
> card. Reboot. You may get lucky and everything just works.
>
> More likely, the GPIB will work and the sound card won't. Go check the GPIB card resources and you'll probably see that the
> NI488 drivers snagged one or more of the INT or DMA channels that the sound card was using. Try a different GPIB
> configuration, or manually edit the DMA and INT settings to NONE. Also check for I/O range conflicts. (Consult your written
> list, because the conflicts won't show in Device Manger -- since the sound card's not working it's not using any resources!)
>
> Hopefully, by telling Device Manager to NOT use Automatic Settings, you can get the GPIB working and still leave enough
> resources available for the sound card. Which you will probably have to go back and reinstall, from scratch. Possibly a few
> times before you get everything to fit.
>
> How bad do you want that sound card ? :~)
>
> Isn't (Microsoft) plug and play wonderful?
>
> p.s. you might also consider using CMOS setup to disable any motherboard resources you are not using, for example a COM port
> that's not connected to anything. Remember to write down EVERYTHING, you do so you can put it back if you have to.
>
> Good luck!
>
> --
> Best Regards,
> Mike T
>
> Mike Tranchemontagne
> Consulting Applications Engineer
> TeraComm, Inc.
> 148 Main Street
> Building A, 3rd Floor
> North Andover, MA 01845
> 877-900-TERA (8372)
> 978-557-9490 (FAX)
> 603-598-4773 (Direct Line and Cell)
>
> Timothy John Streeter wrote:
>
> > Hi Group
> >
> > The Story is:
> > I have had a AT-GPIB/TNT PnP on a old Pentium 75/Win 95 Machine doing some testing, and havn't had a problem with it.
> > I now wanted to install a Creative Sound Blaster (Vibra) 16, also PnP ISA, card for basic audio analysis measurements.
> > The problem is when the Sound Blaster card is installed the PnP BIOS doesn't recognise the GPIB card at all, even with PnP
> > disabled.
> >
> > Has anybody seen this before?
> > Could it be that the PC can only handle 2 ISA PnP cards (there is also a PnP network card)?
> > Would I be better of with a PCI SB card.
> >
> > Any help would be gratefull
> >
> > Tim S