Device Driver Startup Types

[skool h8r]

Hi all,
I'm not sure this is the right forum, but i need it answered ASAP, and it is to do with a soundcard. Anyway, i've recently got the "drivers not found" problem with my X-Fi XtremeMusic. Now, i think i have a solution, not guaranteed, but seems to be logical. Basically, the drivers, in Device manager (Show hidden devices), for the card are set to start on demand. Now, a lot of the other drivers are set to load at system time. There's a few others which are set to start at boot.

What i want to know is that if i set the Creative X-Fi Drivers to load at system time, would this load them earlier than on demand?

I believe that the problems are driver related. I've done a bit of research and discovered that they are simply not loading some of the time, and this could be down to how they are set to initialise.

This isn't service startup, this is driver startup. Anyone with any information on driver startup types/modes, could you please post it here.

Cheers,
Scott.

[cadaveca]

the problem occurs when there are many items that start as windows does...drivers and services, as you have mentioned. there is a limited amt of time during which this can happen...and quite often, as teh soundcard is usually initialized last, it's not given enough time, or another driver need to load first.

I have had a glimpse of this issue...was originally caused by installing ATITool. This took complete re-install of windows to remedy.

Sometimes, after getting my pc fully up and running, and all the gaming devices connected, the sound card will not start. Usually a reboot will fix the problem tho, so identfying just what it is that is causing the issue can be hard, to say the least, as it does not seem to have a common factor...other than the driver does not load at start-up.


I can definately say, tho, that the issue occurs far less for me if I have pci latency set to 64 rather than 32.

[skool h8r]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

...
I have had a glimpse of this issue...was originally caused by installing ATITool.

...
I can definately say, tho, that the issue occurs far less for me if I have pci latency set to 64 rather than 32.

Strange. I have ATITool installed. I havent used it for a while though. I think i might uninstall it and see how it goes.

Also, for some reason, i can't find a PCI Latency option in my BIOS.

[cadaveca]

if you have ATITool installed, you'll have to remove ALL traces of it from your system. This is not easily accomplished with some versions tho, i have found, and can lead to the direct re-install of your OS.


I also found that it was best to install OS without card installed in machine, install drivers, etc for everything else, and when you are ready to isntall your first game, or whatever, THEN install the x-FI.

[skool h8r]

Hmmm, well, uninstalling ATITool didn't do much. Setting the driver load time to system didn't do anything, and it wouldn't let me set it to boot. Automatic didn't do anything either. Hmmm. I've got a few other things to try. But earlier, i had a look through the .sys files in notepad, and discovered that one of them at least, registered 2 different settings in the registry. I think they were both for the same hardware and Vendor ID, but one was for "multimedia audio controller", which is what device manager shows when it can't detect the drivers, and the other was for the X-fi (can't remember exact wording). Now, personally, i'm not too sure if it is supposed to be like that, it could be a registry conflict somewhere along the way.

One idea i just thought of is adding the file ctaud2k.sys (which is the X-Fi driver/initialisation file) to system.ini drivers through msconfig. The only problem here is that it's in a subfolder (drivers) and not system 32.

I'm up for ideas that i could use. I've got another. Basically, uninstall drivers, remove the card completely, reboot. Use DCPro to completely remove last things. Reboot. shutdown. install card, install drivers, update. and so on. Is there any tool i can use to log registry entries and files that are being written as i'd like to see if there's a problem somewhere along the way.

And oh yeah, are .sys files in the driver directory initialisation scripts for drivers? Or am i lost in the woods?

Cheers,
Scott.

[skool h8r]

UPDATE: Ok. I have discovered to root of the problem. The file ctaud2k.sys, which is the actual device driver, is not being given enough time to load. This is due to device priority. Because a soundcard isn't seen as essential, if Windows doesn't completely load the driver in time, it simply unloads it.

However, the problem here is that the main driver file, ctaud2k.sys doesn't get enough time to load unless something has changed. Some people reported success if they went into BIOS, changed nothing, saved and booted into Windows as normal. This seems to be down to the "modification" flag that Windows raises as it rescans the configuration. This would also appear the same if a system patch is installed as the extra time taken to rescan and configure allows the driver to load.

However, onto another part, i set the other drivers (HAL driver, Soundfont Manager, AC3 Driver, and a few others) to start at system. I checked when the sound was working and all the drivers were loaded, all 7 of them. I then checked when the sound wasn't working (it's pretty easy to predict now). Sure enough, only 6 were loaded. The one that wasn't; ctaud2k.sys.

The other side of the problem, is that although 6 of the drivers are registered in "non plug and play drivers", one of them isn't. And guess which one that is? Yup, ctaud2k.sys. This means that we can't set it to start at system time.

I am proposing a temporary fix of some sort of application that changes a startup entry. Whether this will appear to be enough of a change to raise the "modified" flag remains to be seen.

The permanent fix for this would be to register the driver in "non plug and play drivers" and set it's start type to system.

I'll update again soon. I'm off to work on my temporary fix. If it does work, then i'll be posting it to the Creative community, Creative tech, and of course, AOA.

[Samuknow]

Have you tried disabling some of the startup items in MSCONFIG? There may be some other things starting that you do not need to be running that is starting before your card. I usually do this any way just to speed up windows start. If something does not work right you can always enable it again.

[skool h8r]

That's the problem you see. If i disable something, it is likely to speed up the boot process, which, for the purposes of testing, isn't something i want. This is definately down to initialisation though, and the "modified" flag. Just now, i couldn't get sound so i disabled the SoundFont manager. I went into bios, saved without changing anything, booted into Windows. All i got was scratching sounds, but like it was panning around the speakers really quickly. I logged in, changed modes and it worked fine. However, i've just rechecked and the SoundFont manager is indeed running again, so there must be a service changing it's startup from disabled.

I will try your suggestion, but for the other people who have tried a fresh install, it may not work.

Also, my Temporary fix of adding something to startup didn't work. So that's not enough to push it into submission. Perhaps i need some sort of boot screen randomiser, that might just be enough to do it. It did work before.

I'll update soon.

[skool h8r]

UPDATE: neither disabling some startup programs or ransomising the bootscreen didn't work. However, i have an idea. If i put all the commands for items that run at startup into a batch file and then just have that batch file running it startup. It may reduce system load.

However, i have another idea of just replacing the driver file before shutdown. This could be achieved with a batch file very easily, although to shut the computer down, would mean that the batch file would have to be run, as opposed to using the startmenu shutdown option.

I'll have a test and see what i can do. But it is definatly down to initialisation.

For the rest of the day, while i have the sound working (driver reinstall), i think i'm gonna enjoy it rather than trying to solve the problem.

Updates soon.

[skool h8r]

AHAHA! Solved it at long last! Well, so it would appear. Basically, i found the registry entry (i can't believe i didn't think to look there) that is associated with this shady ctaud2k.sys. Basically, it's permissions are being reset, either by Windows, or by the drivers. There were also the Enum key missing which seems to have helped. I'm gonna post a tutorial later today (it's 10 past midnight here).

It's basically that it's modifying the entries, which seems to affect whether or not it is detected. I also discovered that on one of my PCI ports, it was sharing with my Graphics Adapter. Hmmm, for some reason that doesn't seem to be a good idea since only one can give an interrupt at one time. And if i'm pumping god only knows how much bandwidth through there, that really ain't gonna help either.

And oh yeah, off topic, check my sig for my new stable overclock! I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I know i am (even if it does mean running the CPU at 1.55V). It got to 60°C earlier when i was running CSS with 19 bots (practicing with shotgun headshots from a few metres and seeing how bad the hitboxes really were).

The bandwidth on the bus must be completely saturated now! But the good sign is that NFSMW at max at 1280x1024 runs smooth, even when going through the forested area. It does drop a bit there, but everywhere else it's at like 70FPS! All this from a 7600GT. I really must retest Aquamark.

[Favu]

Wow that's pretty cool, could you pust up 3D mark or summat at 3Ghz? That would be really interesting!

[skool h8r]

Originally Posted by Favu

Wow that's pretty cool, could you pust up 3D mark or summat at 3Ghz? That would be really interesting!

Sure thing. It'll have to be 05 since 06 is a little too much (FPS way down). Aquamark was at about 93500. I've had to loosen my timings though because of BSODs at boot. Need to change sig and retest.

Also, the fix for the Creative issue is on it's way, currently working on it now. It does mean that people will have to use regedit to change permissions since there's not many Delphi components out there that can do it easily.

[skool h8r]

Done! Driver Fix is complete! It's a html guide describing how to fix the issue of "drivers not found". It's all in a zip file and is only ~200K. It's attached. Maybe it could go in AOA FAQ's?

There's a few things to do before you follow it though.

Firstly, you need to completely remove the drivers through add/remove programs. Completely remove everything you installed; X-Fi drivers, Soundfont, Volume Panel, everything associated with the X-Fi. Shutdown your computer and physically remove the X-Fi from your system.

You should then start your computer again. After that, you should use Driver Cleaner pro to remove anything that's left. Use the "Creative" and "Creative lite" filters.

Restart once more. Now, you should download and install a program called "Tune-Up Utilities 2007". There's a 30 day trial available. Run through the "DiskCleaner" and "Registry Cleaner" wizards and let it remove everything it finds. If you are asked to restart, let it restart your computer. Once your computer has rebooted, open Tune-Up Utilities 2007 again. This time, you should run the "Registry Defrag". Let it run and scan for everything. When asked to restart, let it restart your computer. Once you've rebooted, shutdown. Now put the X-Fi back unto your computer. Start your computer again and install the Creative drivers from the CD as well as anything else such as Soundfont or volume panel, or anything else from the disc for that matter. Once This is done, restart your computer.

You can now follow the guide.

The guide itself can be downloaded here:
http://fm-studios.uggle.co.uk/xfi/X-Fi Fix Guide.zip

It's only about 200Kb download. Just make sure you follow it exactly, and that you read the disclaimer.

Enjoy.

This is Scott Pritchard, signing out.

[skool h8r]

After further investigation, i've discovered that there is still a problem. I've got another fix on the way (a batch file). I just need to test it first. Seems that a rogue registry entry is still causing problems . Update soon.

[Daniel ~]

When you have it worked out could you open a new thread please? This makes it much easier for me to transfer and keep AOA FAQ looking neat and worth reading.":O}

OH! PM me so I'm sure to see it please! TIA.

[skool h8r]

Sure thing!

[Daniel ~]

Thanks big guy!