all in wonder 128 pro problems

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louloizides

I'm working on an embedded computer application. The mainboard has a
Cyrix MediaGX processor equivalent to a Pentium 233 MMX. I put an all
in wonder card 128 pro in there and expected to be able to watch TV and
get watchable (even if it's a little jerky) DVD playback. Instead,
windows completely freezes every time I try to watch TV and the DVD
playback is not watchable (maybe 1 frame per second at the most).

According to the ATI website, the all in wonder 128 pro requires an IRQ
to be set to the card to get the TV tuner to work. Unfortunately, my
bios has no option for "assign IRQ to VGA". Windows only shows the card
in memory - not with an IRQ assigned. I kind of think that this might
be part of the trouble, but I have no idea how to assign an IRQ because
I can't uncheck "use automatic settings" in windows. Is there a way to
force the settings to change? Am I stuck with no IRQ assigned?
 
I'm working on an embedded computer application. The mainboard has a
Cyrix MediaGX processor equivalent to a Pentium 233 MMX. I put an all
in wonder card 128 pro in there and expected to be able to watch TV and
get watchable (even if it's a little jerky) DVD playback. Instead,
windows completely freezes every time I try to watch TV and the DVD
playback is not watchable (maybe 1 frame per second at the most).

According to the ATI website, the all in wonder 128 pro requires an IRQ
to be set to the card to get the TV tuner to work. Unfortunately, my
bios has no option for "assign IRQ to VGA". Windows only shows the card
in memory - not with an IRQ assigned. I kind of think that this might
be part of the trouble, but I have no idea how to assign an IRQ because
I can't uncheck "use automatic settings" in windows. Is there a way to
force the settings to change? Am I stuck with no IRQ assigned?
Click to expand...

You don't give much away. What operating system are you using? What rating
is the PSU? How much memory you got? What's the make and model of the
motherboard?
 
I'm using a very stripped down version of XP. The PSU is 125watts, but
the processor is a Cyrix MediaGX 233mhz MMX which is very low power.
The memory is 128megs. The motherboard is an Aaeon PCM-4896 embedded
PC.

I was hoping that there was something I could do to the card to force
it to take an IRQ from the bios - a jumper or something. I don't see
any on the board though. Is there a software way to do this?
 
I'm using a very stripped down version of XP. The PSU is 125watts, but
the processor is a Cyrix MediaGX 233mhz MMX which is very low power.
The memory is 128megs. The motherboard is an Aaeon PCM-4896 embedded
PC.

I was hoping that there was something I could do to the card to force
it to take an IRQ from the bios - a jumper or something. I don't see
any on the board though. Is there a software way to do this?
Click to expand...

Ok - I am well confused here. The specs of your MOBO indicate you have only
one PCI slot.
http://www.tempustech.com/pdf/pcm4896ManualA.pdf whereas I thought the
9800AIW was an AGP card. Ah well..

Regardless of the above, a 125w PSU coupled with a 233 CPU will not allow
the card to work properly anyway. It's a bit like getting a custom spray job
_and_ a set of top class alloy wheels with low profile tyres for your car
whilst having a crunchy gearbox, dodgy brakes and an engine that uses as
much oil as it does petrol.

Take the card out and keep it safe until you buy a new PC. Don't upgrade -
get a new one. Then you will see what's what.

In the meantime boot to safe mode and log in as the administrator. You
should be able to get to the greyed out setting and uncheck the auto select
box.
 
This isn't for a PC. It's for an industrial embedded system which is
why I have this board and the card is an AIW 128 pro PCI, not a 9800
(I'm not sure where you got that from). For some reason ACPI won't work
even though the bios supports it, but I'll check safe mode anyway.

What's weird is that ACPI worked fine when I had 98 installed.
Unfortunately, some of the software I have doesn't work with 98 which
is why I had to use XP in the first place.
 
I wrote a reply to here earlier. I'm not sure why it didn't get posted.
Anyway, please note, as I mentioned above, that the card is an AIW 128
pro. It's a PCI card. The motherboard is a tiny embedded single board
computer - I can't replace it. This is not for a normal computer or
gaming application. It's an SBC with one PCI slot. I needed to caputer
analog video into very low res MPEG-2s and play them back - this board
seemed like it would take a lot of that work off of the SBC's processor
(since with 233mhz it'd be at 100% usage). The 125w PSU is fine because
the Cyrix Processor is very low power and I'm using a laptop HD and DVD
drive in the system.

Obviously, I have a much better computer for everything else. This
thing fits into a box with about a 5"x8" footprint.

I'll try going into safe mode to change the resources, but I can't get
ACPI working through Win XP so I had figured that Windows XP just
wasn't assigning an IRQ. The bios doesn't have an option to do that,
either.
 
Yeah, that didn't work. It's still grayed out in safe mode, just like I
figured it would be. Anyone else got any other ideas?
 
Yeah, that didn't work. It's still grayed out in safe mode, just like I
figured it would be. Anyone else got any other ideas?
 
This isn't for a PC. It's for an industrial embedded system which is
why I have this board and the card is an AIW 128 pro PCI, not a 9800
(I'm not sure where you got that from). For some reason ACPI won't work
even though the bios supports it, but I'll check safe mode anyway.

What's weird is that ACPI worked fine when I had 98 installed.
Unfortunately, some of the software I have doesn't work with 98 which
is why I had to use XP in the first place.
Click to expand...
Just the fact that you are trying to run XP on that thing and in only 128mb of
ram is whats doing you in.
 
This isn't for a PC. It's for an industrial embedded system which is
why I have this board and the card is an AIW 128 pro PCI, not a 9800
(I'm not sure where you got that from). For some reason ACPI won't work
even though the bios supports it, but I'll check safe mode anyway.

What's weird is that ACPI worked fine when I had 98 installed.
Unfortunately, some of the software I have doesn't work with 98 which
is why I had to use XP in the first place.
Click to expand...

In that case look into something called VMWare. It allows you to run a
virtual machine inside another operating system and run programs completely
seperately from one another. 98 & XP. Linux and 3.1, 95 and Win2K - whatever
you want. Chews up system resources though so maybe this would stretch your
system too much.
 
I don't think the 128mb RAM is causing a problem. I'm 90% sure its
because I can't set a dedicated IRQ to the card in the bios. I set up a
Win 98 installation in there and I'm still having the same problems.
The VMWare thing would be nice, but there's no way this computer could
support it. I think I'm gonna have to throw in the towel on this one.
It really sucks. I know that back in the day video cards would have a
jumper on them to grab an IRQ - I wish this one did too.
 
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