Hi Everyone,

I'm having trouble using a Voodoo 5 5500 MAC PCI card and a Realtek 10/100 network adapter on the same PCI Bus.

I have a PC CHIPS M590 Super Socket 7 mainboard with a SiS 5591 chipset, AMD K6-2 500Mhz, 256Mb RAM running XP home SP2 and using the latest Amigamerlin drivers.  This system has worked fine up until now with 2 Voodoo 2's in SLI and the onboard SIS6326 AGP card.

I disabled the onboard AGP and replaced the Voodoo2's with the Voodoo 5 and the system is very stable and can play all the games the Voodoo2's did (e.g. Unreal Tournament) at very good frame rates no problems.

But the system locks up everytime I try sustained network transfers, either during network gameplay or large file transfers with nothing else running.

I tried different slots and different IRQ configurations and even a different brand network card (same Realtek chipset however), but it did exactly the same thing.

I also tried powering the video card with a separate external power supply, but same problem so it's not a power supply issue.

It's as if the PCI bus is being hung when sustained network data is being sent down it, but for the life of me I can't see what the difference is between a Voodoo 5 and 2xVoodoo 2's in SLI (which works fine!!)

Also, as a side note - I can allocate an IRQ to the Voodoo 5 in the BIOS, but it doesn't make any difference in windows.  Does it need an interrupt?  WinXP shows it using an IRQ in the device manager only when I allocate it one in the BIOS!  Thats not the problem though because it still hangs the system anyway.

Another side note - I can only seem to get 16bit colour using glide in Unreal Tournament.  Anyone know more about that?

Just before I try re-installing WinXP which is a long shot, does anyone have any other ideas about the system lockup?

Further to the above, I have just borrowed a 3Com card with a lucent chipset so I'll see if that works!

<blatent product placement mode on>
By the way, I have started another thread over at the PC CHIPS Lottery BBS - this is a great site for unofficial BIOS updates and general tips on all new and old PC CHIPS mainboards!

My thread is at http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q3998142-bin/cgi-bin/ibrd/topic.cgi?forum=3&topic=3392
<blatent product placement mode off>

I would try another PCI slot.some PCI slots are "evil" and will lock up the pc when used.the PCI slot no.3 on my celeron600/voodoo3 3500tv machine is like that..

Yop, it could be an IRQ conflict ("evil" PCI slot ^^). If two devices have to share one if these in most cases one - or both - of them becomes angry. ;-)

Greetings from Germany,
Raff

Greetings!

Well, it appears all my slots are evil[]

Tried the 3com card - worked but took 10 frames per second off the system preformance

an external network card might be the solution..

True story: a couple of friends of mine were after a cheap motherboard for a server, so they went to the local warehouse-cum-shop for one.  The cheapest they had was some PC Chips item.  When they asked for it, the guy behind the counter said "the PC Chips mobo?  You're not... actually going to use it, are you?"

So yeah, guess where I think the problem lies.

Yes, I too have had terible times with sis (620) chipsets......  the three we have in the office now are about four times slower than a comparable intel mobo at the same cpu speed...... especially hard drive transfers and graphics stuff. never checked the network stuff, but that too will be slow......  I remeber having issues with realtec pci network cards and certain motherboards WAY back when.  probably something to do with PCI bus latency and bus mastering to be specific.  If you up the latency number to where it SHOULD be (I think 64 was a good number) this improved things tremendously.  try running the BIOS at the default settings instead of the "performance" (sneer) settings, which almost never worked for me anyways.  and try turning OFF bus mastering if you can, the 3dfx cards can't do it anyways, so why let the network card take over?

My M590 is not a true PC100 mainboard - It acutally runs FSB at an undocumented 90Mhz, but overall system performance is better when FSB is @ 83.5Mhz because the PCI bus goes to 44Mhz.

Has worked fine with the Voodoo 2's (e.g. I was getting a healthy 36 frames per second on CS 1.5 de_dust) - it's the Voodoo 5 has just overloaded it that little bit too much.  Time for a poor man's upgrade - I'll get a true 100Mhz FSB Super Socket 7 mobo off ebay me thinks. - they are like $20 now

QuoteOriginally posted by Chips

My M590 is not a true PC100 mainboard - It acutally runs FSB at an undocumented 90Mhz, but overall system performance is better when FSB is @ 83.5Mhz because the PCI bus goes to 44Mhz.

I'm affraid that overclocking the PCI bus to 44Mhz against its 33Mhz default is the cause of your problem. Have you tried revertig to default bus value to see if problems still persist?

Yes - same problem.

Actually you will find most modern PCI cards can go much higher than the standard 33Mhz.  For example, I never had a problem with my Voodoo2 SLI arrangement sitting on 44Mhz

The Voodoo 5 5500 is actually rated as a 66Mhz capable PCI card.

chips is right about the 66Mhz and the voodoo cards.  sometimes, the OTHER pci cards and even the motherboard system chips can't handle the increase in PCI bus speed though.  the motherboard is your problem!  get away from those craptastic SIS chipsets!  what might be really sweet is if you could find a motherboard that acctually HAD the "server" type 66 Mhz PCI slots in it.  I have only seen the 66Mhz pci slots in server motherboards (high end) but you may be able to find them relatively cheap on ebay now for the older processors.......

By the way, does the Voodoo 5 5500 need an interrupt?

I seem to find no difference when I allocate it one in the BIOS.

I would sometimes require the motherboard to associate the V5 with IRQ 10 to fix some problem or another way back when..... I still do it to this day.  I am sure I was trying to keep something from clobering the V5, but it was so long ago, I forget why I still do it? anyone one else remember why we would want the video card to be on IRQ 10?

I had to mess around with the IRQ assignments a short while ago when I was trying to get a soundcard to work, although I found removing the internal modem to free up an IRQ a much better solution.