M-Audio DIO2448 [17/24] Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

This section addresses potential problems that can occur in all operating

system environments, with emphasis on hardware troubleshooting. Within

the PC environment there are a limited number of hardware resources (I/O

addresses, IRQs, and DMA channels) available for use. Since audio cards

require many resources, most audio card installation problems arise from

unavailable or improperly set resources.

IMPORTANT: Most sound card installation problems result from

attempting to use system resources (IRQs, address locations)

already in use by other hardware (or software acting as “virtual”

hardware) in the system.

The DiO 2448 has been carefully designed to minimize the number of

resources consumed (it requires just one IRQ and does not require any DMA

channel resources). It is also capable of sharing an IRQ in some cases.

However, the possibility of resource conflicts still exists due to the nature of

the Windows environment. Many resource conflicts are automatically

recognized by Windows’ Plug-and-Play (PnP) system. When a resource

conflict is detected, it is displayed in the Windows Device Manager. The

Device Manager places a yellow exclamation point on top of the icon

associated with the problem device. For an example of how the Device

Manager should look when a DiO 2448 is successfully installed, see the

“Verifying Windows Driver Installation” section of this manual. If a yellow

exclamation point appears over your DiO 2448 icon, you may have a

resource conflict. There are several ways to approach this problem.

NOTE: When resolving conflicts between PnP and non-PnP

devices, it is recommended to re-adjust the resource settings of

the non-PnP device first. Typically, Windows is only aware of the

resource settings of the installed PnP devices and has no

information available to it for adjusting the PnP devices’

resources around those of the non-PnP devices. The exceptions

to this are when: (1) a non-PnP device has a true Windows 95/98

driver written for it, (2) the BIOS setup allows reserving an IRQ for

a legacy device as opposed to a PnP device, or (3) resource

requirements for the non-PnP device have been manually entered

into the Windows Device Manager. In these cases Windows is

aware of the non-PnP device’s resource requirements.

One of the quickest ways to change the resources assigned to a PCI card like

the DiO 2448 is to merely relocate the card to another PCI slot. With the

computer’s power off, remove the DiO 2448 from its current PCI slot, move

it to another available PCI slot, and turn your computer back on. More often

than not, this will change the IRQ assignment of the DiO 2448 when you re-

enter Windows. After returning to Windows, follow the steps outlined in the