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• The Hammerfall DSP PCI card is not being detected during boot-up, Multiface and Digiface are not being loaded.  
• The combination Multiface / HDSP PCI card shows a high-frequency tone, as soon as external devices are connected.  
• Important information for Windows 2000/XP users - Removing redundant ASIO driver entries.  
• Problems with single CPU systems and Windows 2000/XP.  
• Low Latency ASIO operation under Windows 2000/XP on single CPU systems.  
• Driver installation succeeded, but MIDI and/or MME drivers do not show up and do not work. ASIO does work. The driver's property dialog displays: Drivers enabled but not functioning properly.

The Hammerfall DSP PCI card is not being detected during boot-up, Multiface and Digiface are not being loaded. (Top)

Information about boot or initialization problems of the HDSP PCI card can be found here.

The combination Multiface / HDSP PCI card shows a high-frequency tone, as soon as external devices are connected. (Top)

For detailed information on the self-oscillation problem of the HDSP PCI card click here.

Important information for Windows 2000/XP users - Removing redundant ASIO driver entries (Top)

The W2k/XP driver of the DIGI32, 96 and Hammerfall series always installs two ASIO drivers, one for the DIGI96 series and one for the Hammerfall, even when only one of both is present as hardware in the system. Although this causes no further problem (the invalid ASIO driver can't be loaded without the corresponding hardware), it worries many users.

It's quite simple to remove the invalid entries. RME provides two files for this purpose:

• del96fix.reg removes the ASIO entry 'ASIO DIGI96 Series'
• delhamfix.reg removes the ASIO entry 'ASIO DIGI9636/52'.

Simply download the corresponding file, double click on it, and confirm the changes to the registry.

Problems with single CPU systems and Windows 2000/XP (Top)

On a dual CPU system Windows 2000 uses a special method to handle interrupts (higher than 15, APIC), but on single CPU systems all devices will have the same IRQ (9.) While this seems to be no big problem on laptops, most desktop computers show significant performance problems. The timing critical access on the audio hardware is no longer guaranteed.

This one-interrupt-for-all is caused by the automatically chosen ACPI mode during installation. Normally this should be no problem, but here the IRQ sharing suffers from bad performance. The computer won't crash, and everything works, but not as good as it should. Two examples: When using a Hammerfall USB/MIDI operation will cause audio stuttering even at highest latency. Data transfers via a network card in the background will disturb audio playback significantly.

The remedy is to change from ACPI to Standard-PC mode. Here's how to do it:

• Check BIOS:
  The entry Plug and Play OS in your mobo's BIOS should be set to 'NO'.
   
• Before installation:
  The mode Standard-PC can be selected already prior to a W2k installation. Hit F6 when you are asked for updated SCSI etc. device drivers (blue screen.) Then press F5 and choose Standard-PC.
   
• After installation:
  Attention: users notified us that this method might lead to problems. Doing a clean install is also recommended by Microsoft!
  
  Go to Device Manager (Control Panel/System/Hardware), click on 'Computer', then double click on 'ACPI-PC'. Go on with 'Driver' and 'Update Driver'. Select 'Display a list of the known drivers for this device', then 'Show all hardware of this device class'. Now you can select 'Standard-PC' in the list shown in the right window.

Windows 2000 will re-start and re-install all hardware. After this the PC will use the BIOS' IRQ assignments.

Under Windows XP Microsoft has significantly improved both interrupt handling and ACPI. In most cases the interrupts will not be sharing IRQ 9. Even when, problems like with the above mentioned simultaneous network transmission are no longer found. Furthermore XP operates more reliable and stable using the ACPI mode. Therefore changing to Standard-PC mode under Windows XP is not recommended.

The worst thing to do is to use Standard-PC mode with the latest generation of single CPU motherboards, having an advanced programmable interrupt controller (APIC.) These boards offer 24 interrupts under Windows XP in ACPI mode (else found on dual CPU boards only) - but only 15 when using Standard-PC mode!

Note 1: The mode Standard-PC brings no advantage on dual CPU systems!

Note 2: For an optimized performance the system performance should be changed to 'optimized for background tasks' (see below.)

Low Latency ASIO operation under Windows 2000/XP on single CPU systems (Top)

To use ASIO at lowest latencies under Windows 2000 single CPU systems, the 'system performance' has to be optimized for background tasks. Go to Control Panel/System/Advanced/Performance Options. Change the default 'Applications' to 'Background tasks'. The lowest usable latency will drop from 23 ms to around 3 ms.

Driver installation succeeded, but MIDI and/or MME drivers do not show up and do not work. ASIO does work. The driver's property dialog displays: Drivers enabled but not functioning properly. (Top)

For detailed information on these problems and explanations on Windows XP's '10 entry limit' click here.
 

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