All in Wonder dropping frames like crazy

[nobody]

I have a problem with a ATI All in Wonder 7500. Everything is working
except I can not record anything without dropping lots of frames… 40
to 80 percent instead of the normal no drops. It was working fine this
just began.

It is not the hardware. This is a dual 2 Ghz Xeon on a server class
Iwill motherboard with 1.5 GB of RAM and fast WD Ultra 100 hard
drives. The capture drives are two 60 GB WD 7200 RPM in a raid 0
setup. This Workstation is running XP PRO SP2 fully patched but dual
boots to Windows 2000 SP4 where I can record anything just fine using
the same hardware.

I am using a AGP 7500 All in Wonder with a PCI TV Wonder in a
MultiView configuration. The software build is new … I just installed
this last month. I am using MMC 9.02 with the appropriate WDM and
display drivers as recommended on the ATI page.

It has to be a driver problem. I have tried reinstalling. If I install
on top of my existing setup nothing changes, the same problem. I have
tried removing MMC and WDM but the uninstall routine hangs right away
and nothing gets removed.

I then tried using the ATI utility, but that is suppose to remove
everything, including the display drivers. But, in fact, it leaves
most of the folders, with files in them, and lots of registry entries.
So after running "catuninstall.exe", I then manually cleaned up the
registry, and removed the ATI folders.

Finally I tried to install again, but display driver install
immediately errors out. The more I tried to fix, the worse things got
and eventually I gave up, and restored my backup image file.

As a side note, when I first installed, in order to get Multiview to
install I had to start out using my ATI CD and then install the
latest, display, WDM and MMC drivers "on top" of my install. If I just
installed the latest drivers, without using the original CD then
everything worked but Multiview. It just didn't see the TV Wonder PRO.
My guess is the hooks are missing from the MMC 9X code.

It looks to me that if I am going to sort this out, I am going to need
to start over with a brand new build which is not something I am
looking forward to.

Anybody have any ideas, something I haven't tried yet?

 

[ATroutThatCodes]

Try checking your IRQ's to see if the IRQ for your
ATI AIW is being shared with something else. I had
the exact problem as you describe with a ATI AIW 8500DV.
My IRQ's got shuffled around after installing a Promise
ATA/133 card, and ACPI glued my AIW's IRQ with some
other device. The AIW dropped a ton of frames while it
was sharing it's IRQ, then it was back to normal after I
unglued it from ACPI's control.

Run MSINFO32.EXE from start/run... and check the status
of your IRQ's.

 

[nobody]

Try checking your IRQ's to see if the IRQ for your
ATI AIW is being shared with something else. I had

That's a good idea, but I don't show any conflicts. However, I
showdevices assigined up to IRQ 22. If the IWILL is sharing IRQs it
is not showing it as such. It is just displaying it as a separate IRQ.
However, this is on a i810 board so it could be different.

How did you unglue it... just uninstall and reboot and then let it
reinstall. It won't allow me to change it.

thanks

 

[Gordon Scott]

I have a problem with a ATI All in Wonder 7500. Everything is working
except I can not record anything without dropping lots of frames… 40
to 80 percent instead of the normal no drops. It was working fine this
just began.

It is not the hardware. This is a dual 2 Ghz Xeon on a server class
Iwill motherboard with 1.5 GB of RAM and fast WD Ultra 100 hard
drives. The capture drives are two 60 GB WD 7200 RPM in a raid 0
setup. This Workstation is running XP PRO SP2 fully patched but dual
boots to Windows 2000 SP4 where I can record anything just fine using
the same hardware.

I am using a AGP 7500 All in Wonder with a PCI TV Wonder in a
MultiView configuration. The software build is new … I just installed
this last month. I am using MMC 9.02 with the appropriate WDM and
display drivers as recommended on the ATI page.

It has to be a driver problem. I have tried reinstalling. If I install
on top of my existing setup nothing changes, the same problem. I have
tried removing MMC and WDM but the uninstall routine hangs right away
and nothing gets removed.

I then tried using the ATI utility, but that is suppose to remove
everything, including the display drivers. But, in fact, it leaves
most of the folders, with files in them, and lots of registry entries.
So after running "catuninstall.exe", I then manually cleaned up the
registry, and removed the ATI folders.

Finally I tried to install again, but display driver install
immediately errors out. The more I tried to fix, the worse things got
and eventually I gave up, and restored my backup image file.

As a side note, when I first installed, in order to get Multiview to
install I had to start out using my ATI CD and then install the
latest, display, WDM and MMC drivers "on top" of my install. If I just
installed the latest drivers, without using the original CD then
everything worked but Multiview. It just didn't see the TV Wonder PRO.
My guess is the hooks are missing from the MMC 9X code.

It looks to me that if I am going to sort this out, I am going to need
to start over with a brand new build which is not something I am
looking forward to.

Anybody have any ideas, something I haven't tried yet?

disable APIC in the bios for the install.

 

[ATroutThatCodes]

If you only see the AIW on IRQ-22, then it's
probably not being shared. But if your AIW is a
PCI card, some motherboards will share an IRQ
from certain PCI slots, with other onboard devices
which MAY NOT show up in hardware manager.
I know how much of a pain in the rump this is, but
you might want to try moving your AIW to different
PCI slots, and see if it changes. Also make note of the
slot you have it in now, and check your motherboard
manual to see if that slot shares an IRQ.

Sound cards can also cause frame drop problems. You
may want to google your sound card/system to see if there is
anything funky with it. And perhaps you could disable your
sound hardware in device manager, reboot and try to do
a video only recording to see if the sound card/system is
the problem.

Ungluing ACPI IRQ assignments are anything but
scientific and logical. Usually you have to shift
IRQ/SLOT assignments in your BIOS, and you may
also have to power down, remove a PCI/ISA card which
uses an IRQ, reboot, check the IRQ's, and perhaps do
it several times until ACPI reassigns the IRQ's
to your liking. If it reassigns them at all.

 

[nobody]

Well, this is a server class board, and I am using a AGP All in Wonder
7500 ... but also a PCI TV Wonder. The TV wonder is not for recording,
just for dual channel watching = two tuners = MultiView. ... which is
working fine.

And I show no conflicts anywhere, but I think you're right. However, I
have no slots to move things around... and I can't move the AGP
anyway, but I do have to replace a NIK next week so I will try that
first and see if that causes a reshuffling of IRQs.

If not, I am going to rebuild the install in order to solve it. That
is what I hate about ATI... when something goes wrong you are on your
own.... and mostly your screwed!

 

[liam]

Well, this is a server class board, and I am using a AGP All in Wonder
7500 ... but also a PCI TV Wonder. The TV wonder is not for recording,
just for dual channel watching = two tuners = MultiView. ... which is
working fine.

And I show no conflicts anywhere, but I think you're right. However, I
have no slots to move things around... and I can't move the AGP
anyway, but I do have to replace a NIK next week so I will try that
first and see if that causes a reshuffling of IRQs.

If not, I am going to rebuild the install in order to solve it. That
is what I hate about ATI... when something goes wrong you are on your
own.... and mostly your screwed!

You may find that it is your Server Class Board and Dual CPU that is causing
the problems.
For a long time now dual CPU setups for home use cause more problems than
single CPU setups running under windows and the performance benefit can be
minimal because there isn't many programs aside from professional
applications that will take advantage of Dual CPU's.

AIW7500 is how old now ?
I'm sorry to say that most tech companies will not provide a lot of support
for the older products unless you are willing to pay them lots.

 

[ATroutThatCodes]

Sounds good. As another note, some AGP
slots share an IRQ with the PCI slot which is
right next to it. Is your TV Wonder card in the
PCI slot next to the AGP slot? If so, try shuffling
that around. Also take a look at memory ranges
within msinfo32.exe and see if there are any shares/
conflicts with video buffer memory ranges. Probably not.

 

[nobody]

I think it might be some kind of WAN software at work... I had it
working for a short time and then with a reboot it came back. For a
moment I thought it might be some kind of spyware or MS Multimedia
driver.but I ran Adaware, and Spybot and it's clean.

I show no conflicts of any kind in Device Manager, Sysoft Sandra
2004, VCOM system Suite, or XP information manager. And this is a 500
dollar server class board with PCI64 slots, so it isn't the kind of
board that has these kind of problems.

I think it is software, but I can't find it. Well, at this point I
will see what happens when I replace the NIK and go from there.
thanks for the help