Troubleshooting; Keeping Up To Date; Error Messages; Pci Bus Too Slow - Merging Pyramix 4.3 User Manual

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting is always a moving target as users discover ever more exotic ways to use Pyramix.
Therefore, this section is necessarily historic.
If the answer to your problem cannot be found here or elsewhere in the documentation, for the latest
information please consult the FAQ sections at:
http://www.merging.com
If you need further technical support, please e-mail
support@merging.com

Keeping Up To Date

Acquiring and installing regularly the latest Drivers/Firmware/Bios or Operating System available for
equipment such as: Graphic Cards, CD/DVD writers, Network Adapters, Motherboards, (but exercise
especial caution), external drives, RAID controllers and other third party hardware add-ons, will ensure
that your system will always perform as efficiently as possible. Always accept any 'rollback' options, just
in case the driver updates have unforeseen consequences.
Keeping Windows (and DirectX) up to date with latest service packs is also, in general, a positive move
towards maintaining a healthy system.
Note: These operations are not required for Mykerinos and Daughter cards simply
because the latest firmware for your hardware (if any) is automatically installed by the
most recent Pyramix installer.

Error Messages

PCI Bus Too Slow

PC motherboards are by no means equal. Real-time intensive activities such as those found in audio
and video workstations show up inadequacies unlikely to be noticed in more mundane applications.
Even though one might expect the newest, ever faster Pentium or AMD processors to give better per-
formance this isn't always the case. At least with respect to how well they handle the transfer of data
over the PCI bus on which the Mykerinos board(s) resides.
Audio is requested or handed over on the PCI bus every 1.3ms. When the request (interrupt) is delayed
for more than 20%, in this case 0.26ms, the first warning message will pop up, indicating a timing incon-
stancy of the PCI sub-system. There are two levels of warning with "PCI Bus too Slow" messages; </=
20%, which relates to a serious but not necessarily critical situation and the </= 50% which would result
in drop outs in audio playback or recording or other unwanted artifacts and you want to make absolutely
sure you will not get any of these showing during playback or record. But if you were to get a warning
when opening a project, creating or rebuilding a mixer or when launching Pyramix this, while still a sign
of possible timing issue in the PCI communication at this very moment, would only bring minor inconve-
nience at a non critical instant and would, nonetheless, allow you to work perfectly safely.
Historically, we have observed the PCI Bus too slow messages to occur with the following hardware
combinations:
• In the design of older firmware for the Southbridge 686B of VIA based motherboards.
User Manual : Troubleshooting
User Manual
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