DETAILS OF MY DESKTOP MACHINE SPECS

Issue : Using ASUS P4P800 SLi Deluxe, onboard audio - Spdif (Toslink)
to receiver and finding that windows sounds are 'missing'

Machine Setup - Windows Vista running Media Center (SP1)
Motherboard: Asus P4P800 Sli Deluxe, onboard AC'97 audio with 6x analogue & spdif optical
CPU: Athlon XP 4800
GPU: Nvidia 7800 GTX 256
Memory: 4GB DDR2
TV Tuner: Dual Hauppage MCE OEM with IR Receiver
Remote / Input : Harmony One and Shintaro RF Keyboard with Trackball
Receiver: Denon AVR 2807 (optical input), 5.1 Speaker (B&W 6 Series)
Display: Panasonic Viera 50" Plasma (component connectors - 720P)

I recently converted my old PC into a media center for the lounge room. I had a Topfield 7000 set top box (great picture but more bugs than an anthill) and a Dvico TVIX 5000 HD Media Center (great for movies, very basic for music). Both devices were flawed - the Topfield with bugs galore, awful TV guide and forum members so irate Topfield closed the forum... and the TVIX, a good unit but with very basic audio functionality and stability issues when playing music off my NAS. I have my video and music content on a 2 TB NAS and so I really wanted a 'do it all device' for TV, recording TV, to play movies with various codecs as well as offer a flexible jukebox platform for playing music that supports playlists, ratings, visualizations, sideshows etc.etc

I set up the Media Center PC (Vista x32) so that I could hide it behind the video cabinet, and keeping my partner happy - I wasn't allowed to turn another room into a 'computer room'. The motherboard provides both dedicated analogue outputs as well as a spdif (optical) connector. At first glace it would seem a simple choice - connect six separate audio channels with cables or one single audio channel that does 5.1 and digital and let the receiver decode.

P4P800 SLi Deluxe Audio Spdif (black border and gray center) Analogue (six 3.5 plugs - orange, black, gray, blue, green, pink)

Spdif - is perfect for sources with digital audio. It can transmit encoded or decoded Dolby Digital and DTS using a single cable. This allows your receiver to receive a bitstream signal(not yet separated into channels) and the receiver separates the audio into appropriate channels and and applies EQ / compression etc. as required. Media Center, PowerDVD, Winamp etc. can all make use of your spdif connector to send audio signals to your receiver. Spdif can also transmit stereo sound from Windows so you can hear the analogue audio generated by the operating system.

So why would you want need anything else?? In a nutshell - gaming and applications that generate analogue surround. Most games produce surround sound these days and they do this and can generate 6 analogue audio channels (FL, FR, C, RR, RL, Lfe). Most of the sound cards on the market will NOT transmit analogue surround sound over a Spdif (digital) connector (the exception are cards with Dolby Digital Live or similar technologies that encode into digitial in real time). If I want to hear surround sound gaming using the onboard audio of the P4P800, I need to use the 6 analogue connectors - something I'm living without (for now!)

My issue began when I realised that the volume slider in Vista was no longer making a noise when I moved it up and down. After a bit more investigation I realised that all analogue sounds were no longer being played back through the receiver. Not a big deal most of the time, but I definitely wanted analogue audio for web browsing, especially since you can watch ABC TV online now (for free if you are with iiNet). Of course you also need this so you can watch people being hurt in videos posted on YouTube and Facebook...

I wondered why spdif was no longer sending analogue noises. I checked the settings on the Spdif device settings - they all seemed ok and I could hear digital sounds. I also downloaded the latest AC'97 drivers from the Realtek web site as the Asus drivers were about 2.5 years old and labeled 'beta'. These provided me with a few more configuration options - but still no analogue audio.

Solution: I realised that I had installed about three separate codec packs so I could get Matroska AVI encapsulation, FLAC, AC3 audio, H.264, Xvid, DivX and everything else I could think of. I had read that you can get codec conflicts if you install too many packs.. but then I hadn't found one pack that ticked all the boxes I wanted. I decided it was time to tidy up. I uninstalled everything related to codecs and downloaded the latest K-Lite Codec Pack which does everything under the sun, then some more. During installation the K-Lite Codec pack provided dialogue boxes explaining that some registry entries for audio configuration had been corrupted / where pointing to non existing applications. The codec pack actually corrected these registry entries (bless their hearts!) and the volume slider (and all other stereo analogue sounds) were once again beeping away - happy days!

 

Issue : Sharing a Printer on Vista x64
with Windows XP (x32) machines on the network

I knew I might experience some driver related issues making the move over to Vista x64. One of the reasons many have held back from migrating to a 64 bit system has been the problem of having to source new drivers for all components including printers, graphics cards, sound cards, and just about anything else you plug into your computer that isn't supported natively. I have literally dozens of USB devices and was prepared for some frustration, but was surprised when I was able to find every single driver for my devices. What I was not expecting, was to have difficulties sharing my printer.

I have an aging, but reliable Canon MP780 for printing documents, scanning and faxing (at least before I ditched my land line and got VOIP) I realised that Vista x64 would be using different drivers than XP x32, but all my Windows XP machines had previously connected to my printer and printed so I assumed they would continue to use the drivers they had previously. When I got on the XP machine, I went to add a Network Printer, found the Vista x64 machine, selected the printer. Now it said that I would need to install a driver - not a big surprise as XP probably attempted to retrieve the x64 driver from the Vista machine, which I knew would be incompatible. So I used the dialogue box and navigated to where the x32 Canon drivers had been installed. There were three options, presumably print, scan and fax drivers. Regardless none of them would install and I would receive a message - 'no suitable drivers available'

This was confusing - I knew this driver worked previously and the only difference was that I was using the printer VIA the Vista x64 machine. I also attempted to add the 'additional drivers' on the Vista machine to provide x32 drivers to network machines - but Vista also complained that the x32 driver was not suitable and would not load it as an 'alternative' driver.

As is the case with many technical issues, the driving force for resolution was a disgruntled partner wanting to be able to get things done. She didn't appreciate the glory of 64 bit Adobe products running natively on my x64 Vista install and couldn't understand why I 'messed up the printing'. Faced with not being able to provide the driver when connecting the network drive on the x32 bit machine and not being able to have Vista x64 serve up the 32 bit driver on request I was a bit stuck.

Solution: In order to force Windows XP to use the drivers I knew worked, I had to install the printer locally. Instead of connecting the printer to the XP machine via USB, I did the Add Printer installation and installed the Canon printer to the Local Port - FILE (I believe any port will do for now). This allowed me to install the driver without actually physically connecting the printer. Then while using the XP machine I navigated to the Vista x64 machine and could see the printer name. I copied the network path (\\<machine_name>\<printer_share_name>). Using this network path, I looked at the properties of the printer installed on the XP machines and added a new port, set it to Local Port type, added 'New Port' and then specified the above path - the printer driver installation now pointed to the network path of the Vista printer share using a port. I finally had a printer working on both Vista x64 and shared on XP x32. I have seen registry hacks, INF hack fixes, but they are printer driver specific, I believe this could help with many x64 / x32 printer sharing problems.

..> discuss in forum <..

Issue : Bioshock Black Screen On Loading

I found that Bioshock configuration was working and then as soon as I went to play the game I would be presented with a black screen. There was some hard drive activity, but the program would never recover and I would have to kill the process.

After checking the usual suspects - video driver, sound card driver, too much overclocking, background processes, virus checking etc.etc.

Solution: Finally, after much trawling, I found a tip that suggested turning off Vista's tablet functionality would fix the problem. I tried this, loosing the handwriting / tablet login functionality in windows (that I don't actually use) and Bioshock was good to go! The tablet still works as the drivers are loaded - it's actually the Vista tablet functionality that seems to be interfering with Bioshock's controls - who knew!

To turn off the tablet functionality go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features On or Off then de-select 'Tablet PC Optional Components'.

Update: This issue is also relevant to Far Cry 2. I found that if I had Vista Tablet components enabled Direct X 10 operations would suffer terribly (DX9 was ok) - even menu screens would stutter and take ages to navigate. I don't understand why Far Cry 2 would have such a dreadful frame rate due to tablet functionality, but I have verified this is the case. It seems there is work to be done around Vista tablet compoents to ensure they don't interfere with Direct X / games.

..> discuss in forum <..

Issue: Creative Audigy ZS Platinum Pro Drivers for Vista (x32/x64)

A few years back now, I got my Creative Labs - Sound Blaster Audigy ZS Platinum Pro sound card - a mouthful of a name and a bloody decent sound card - tons of connectors, EAX for games, midi for my guitar 'v-amp' and another remote control for the drawer. In the days before Vista, the sound card has some buggy, albeit updated and working drivers so that you could actually use all the functionality.

Along came Vista in a puff of bloatware, DX10 promises and driver confusion but on the upside a new way of handling audio was introduced. Audio processing (stack) has been moved from the Kernel to the User Mode which should in theory allow for drivers / failures etc. to be recoverable - protecting the operating systems from the evils of sound card / driver abuses. Fantastic, except Creative Labs, instead of developing and releasing new drivers for their Audigy line of cards they did the following:-

• Fixed up their X-Fi drivers (newer cards) and pushed them as the Vista solution
• Took ages to re-work and release Audigy drivers
• Released buggy Vista Drivers for Audigy sound cards

Along came the legendry Daniel Kawakami (daniel_k) - who looked at the Vista drivers in assembly and noticed that functionality had INTENTIONALLY been removed for Audigy cards and also functions that were sold as exclusive to the X-Fi could in fact be enabled in Vista for Audigy cards. Creative were obviously crippling their older model sound cards in Vista to encourage people to buy their NEW cards. Daniel had a better idea - re-write Creative's drivers for the Audigy series and release to the public. They can be found here

Far from seeing Daniel as helpful, Creative threatened to sue him and removed all links / posting on their forums.. that was until the massive Creative user base was up in arms. Before long Creative was forced to backtrack and only insisted that Daniel not accept donations for his work, given that it had Creative software components.

Solution: I installed Daniel K's drivers into Vista and found that the functionality 'lost' by moving to Vista had been restored. I once again had EAX, digital connectors, DTS, equalizer settings etc. Please note - if you decide to use these unofficial drivers - they are not supported by Creative. They should only be installed once ALL Creative software has been removed from your system. If you aren't sure you have removed it all - you can use this program to check - Guru3D driver sweeper, which shows which components are currently installed.

I'm totally chuffed there are people out there like Daniel K - who provide the community with a solution to problems a company like Creative has actually created for their customers to try to make more money. I have also resolved to never buy another Creative hardware device again!

..> discuss in forum <..

Changing motherboard chipset (ICH 9) to from IDE to ACHI or RAID configuration
(without reinstalling your OS)

I decided it was time to give a 64 bit operating system a go on my machine and took the opportunity to give a few things a tweak - I wanted to run 4GB DDR3, change from SATA in IDE mode on the motherboard to a RAID 0 for Windows / Scratch with other drives standalone and also do some conservative overclocking of CPU, memory and GPU. I also wanted to keep my Windows XP SP3 installation running so that I could fall back to it if I had compatibility issues or needed a 100% working OS while I was putting Vista x64 through its paces.

I managed a fairly conservative overclock of CPU (C2D 6850) to around 3.30 GHz, didn't achieve much with the memory and got about a 5% overclock on my 8800GT 512. When it came to changing my motherboard's SATA settings over things got a bit more complicated. If I changed my chipset (ICH 9) to run in RAID 0 - I could choose which hard drives were RAID members and which drives were standalone (non-RAID) but I found that if I loaded up Windows XP which was installed in IDE compatibility mode, it no longerbooted (BSOD) when the chipset was running in RAID mode.

So I faced the problem - how do you boot an operating system that was installed with the south bridge chipset SATA controller operating in a different mode. The ICH9 chipset does IDE,AHCI and RAID modes. I had read around theboards that if you wanted to use RAID you had to install the OS on a RAID configured controller and you couldn't change the controller mode post-installation because the operating system wouldn't be able to read the drive to boot.

I saw some solutions online that worked like this

1. Boot into your operating system using the ICH9 configuration the OS was installed with
2. Apply manual changes (registry, driver, device etc)
3. Shutdown to BIOS
4. Change ICH9 settings in BIOS to desired configuration
5. Reboot and the changes made just before shutting down allow for reading of HD in new mode, and then any OS changes can be implemented once Windows has booted

I had a few problems with this approach, although I believe it worked for some people. Firstly you are changing the chipset driver of a drive you are currently reading from before the actual chipset has changed it's settings. Also the registry changes required varied by OS, by exact chipset and I couldn't be sure I would be applying the correct registry settings. I didn't want to do a registry hack only to find I'd 'half' fixed the ICH9 settings in the OS and no longer be able to read the drives.

I was looking for a safer option. This is what I ended up doing to get Windows XP which was installed in ICH9 IDE mode running on the ICH9 in RAID mode. Note: My motherboard (Asus P5E3 Deluxe Wifi @N has a separate JMircron eSATA controller, an external USB2 drive would also work in this way)

1. Disconnected Windows XP driver from the ICH9 4 Port Sata
2. Set up XP Hard drive in an eSATA caddie (external case) - you could use USB2 if you don't have eSATA
3. Connected the eSATA drive to the Jmicron controller on the hard drive
4. Changed BIOS setting to boot of Jmicron eSATA HD
5. Booted into XP (while not using the ICH9 for the OS drive)
6. Found the ICH9 controller in device manager, installed drivers for RAID operations
7. Shutdown
8. Removed XP OS hard drive from eSATA, reconnected to ICH9 SATA (internal SATA)
9. In BIOS changed over ICH9 mode to RAID
10. Booted to Windows XP and no BSOD, XP now running on a RAID configured chipset.

I was pretty happy when I got it all working - no registry hacks and the process is repeatable / reversible if you ever wanted to change modes again. Since then I installed Vista x64 on a RAID 0 with 2 x 7200.11 drives - making for a fast booting OS with a good scratch disc for Photoshop / Premiere Pro. Currently my configuration of drives on the 4 port sata is:-

500GB RAID MEMBER 1/2 (Vista x64, scratch disc)
500GB RAID MEMBER 2/2 (Vista x64, scratch disc)
1TB WINDOWS XP / VISTA 32 OS (non RAID)
750 Storage Drive (non RAID)

..> discuss in forum <..