Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO 90

[galahs]

Ok, the Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO 90 is an old ISA Sound Card that was provided as an OEM card by many vendors including Gateway (formally known as Gateway 2000 )

This card installs and works fine on Windows 95 / 98 / 98SE / Me using the following driver http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers...rsion%201.00.08 from Gateways support page.

However based on online forums, driver discussion boards etc, many users have had major trouble getting older ISA Sound Cards to work on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. This is because some of these older cards do not fully support PnP (Plug and Play). This results in Windows 2000 and Windows XP in allocating resources these cards need to other devices installed on the system. Many older ISA cards can not handle resource sharing.

Unfortunately I found it hard to find anyone giving explanations of how to fix this problem.

To get around this with older ISA cards we need to manually set their IRQ settings in the bios to prevent them from being shared with other hardware.

The following is what I did for an Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO 90 sound card to allow it to run on Windows XP. It should give an insite into how you might be able to get other ISA sound cards to function on newer operating systems like Windows XP and Windows 2000 (possibly Vista)

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INSTALL ENSONIQ SOUNDSCAPE VIVO 90 ON WINDOWS XP

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1. Get the Drivers

Get the Windows NT 4.0 driver snd022aa.exe (Ensoniq VIVO Sound driver, version 3.00.11) from Gatway Support website: http://support.gateway.com

Direct Link: http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers...p;uid=181385281

Double click on the file to extract the files.

For other cards they may have Windows XP or 2000 drivers. Use those!

2. Enter the BIOS

Restart your computer and enter your BIOS setting (usually have to press the DELETE or F1 button etc etc)

3. Disable un-used Ports

Disable and COM ports you will not be using. This frees up some IRQ addresses. I disabled all unused Serial and Parrallel ports.

4. Force IRQ Setting

(This may be different depending on your bios. Have a look for similar settings.)

In the bios I modified the CONFIGURATION MODE to USE SETUP UTILITY (the default was USE ICU or PnP OS)

Now I could modify my IRQ settings. So I forced:

IRQ 5 = Used by ISA card

IRQ 9 - Used by ISA card

5. Save and Restart Computer

6. Install Driver

Go to START - SETTINGS - CONTROL PANEL - (Switch to Classic View if required) - SYSTEM - HARDWARE (tab) - DEVICE MANAGER

Right Click on "Ensoniq Soundscape" (or similar) and select Update driver.

Click: NO, not this time (don't check Windows Update), then click next

Click: Install from a list or specific location, then click next

Click: Don't search. I will choose the driver to install, then click next

Click: Have disk

Click: Browse

Locate the folder where you extracted the driver earlier. Then click OPEN (in my case it was C:\CABS\SND022AA ) then click OK

Click next

The driver will now install.

You may have to click "Continue Anyway" because the driver wont be signed (tested and approved) my Microsoft

Then click FINISH

(if you are presented with "Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO Properties" page, you may have to manually enter the default setting listed further below in this post)

7. Restart Computer

Restart your computer and your sound card should work.

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Troubleshooting

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Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO 90 default resource settings:

I/O Range: 0330 - 033F

I/O Range: 0530 - 053F

I/O Range: 2100 - 213F

IRQ: 05

IRQ: 09

DMA: 01

DMA: 00

If the sound still doesn't work, go back into DEVICE MANAGER, check to see if ENSONIQ SOUNDSCAPE has a yellow exclamation mark ! next to it.

If it does double click on it to see what the problem is. You may have to manually set the resources.

Also you might want to try installing your sound card in a different ISA slot.

Turning off Power Managment features in the BIOS and in Windows can also help.

Setting your computer to "Standard PC" can also help (may require re-install)

ACPI or "Standard PC"

ACPI works extremely well with Windows XP, and has been significantly improved upon over Windows 2000.

Therefore, it is recommended that you first try installing Windows XP with the default option, which is as an ACPI computer.

The only time that the "Standard PC" mode can be recommended with XP, is when you are experiencing audio card or other problems (possibly relating to IRQ sharing/stacking), and only when you have exhausted all other possible causes.

If you have one of the more modern motherboards that has APIC capabilities, then it is definitely recommended that you install Windows XP as an ACPI computer.

In fact, installing Windows XP as a "Standard PC" on an APIC compatible computer will probably result in reduced performance and a reduction with overall reliability.

The number of available interrupts is increased from 15 (0 to 15 with irq2 reserved) to 24 or more with an APIC system, when using XP and ACPI.

Indeed, some IOAPIC's have 64 interrupts, and some motherboards have more than one APIC, potentially giving hundreds of IRQ's.

You should find that there is absolutely no IRQ sharing whatsoever when using an APIC/XP/ACPI installation.

If you have an older motherboard without APIC, then it may be better to install as "Standard PC".

However, the bottom line is that if you have a working system with ACPI, then leave it alone. If it isn't broken, then don't fix it.

To find out if your motherboard has APIC, then please refer to your motherboard manual and/or check in the BIOS. If you want to use APIC, then make sure it is enabled in your BIOS.

When installing XP as an ACPI PC on an APIC motherboard, it doesn't matter what the "Plug and Play OS" setting is in your BIOS. XP will override this anyway. Microsoft actually recommend setting this to "No" regardless.

If you do decide to install as a "Standard PC", then follow the steps below.

Firstly, the entry Plug and Play OS in your motherboard's BIOS should be set to 'NO'. Click here to find out why.

During installation of the XP operating system, you will see a screen displaying the message - "Press F6 if you need to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver". At this point, press the F5 key (this won't be supplied as an option on the screen and the installation won't wait, so you'll need to babysit the installation process and hit the key at the right moment). A few seconds after pressing F5, you will be presented with an option to select either "Standard PC" or "Other (ACPI) PC".

At this point, select "Standard PC".

If you have already installed XP with ACPI, then you can change to "Standard PC" in the device manager afterwards. However, this method doesn't appear to be as effective as disabling it during the install. To do this, Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Hardware Tab > Device Manager. Expand the Computer at the top of the list and right click the ACPI Computer > Drivers > Update Drivers > Select List > Standard PC. Note that when you reboot your PC, you will need to re-install all of your device drivers again.

Good luck

Edited December 20, 2007 by galahs