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From: bjorn@valhalla.esd.sgi.com (Bjorn Lindstrom)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Soundblaster (386-33 "incompatibilities")
Keywords: music
Message-ID: <1991Apr29.173041.9172@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Date: 29 Apr 91 17:30:41 GMT
References: <16884@chaph.usc.edu> <1991Apr26.192948.13193@en.ecn.purdue.edu> <1991Apr26.205714.19177@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> <1991Apr28.032255.27738@cs.utk.edu>
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Reply-To: bjorn@valhalla.esd.sgi.com (Bjorn Lindstrom)
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In article <1991Apr28.032255.27738@cs.utk.edu>, burkey@duncan.cs.utk.edu (Michael Burkey) writes:
|> Some of these problems,
|>  (ie hung note on wing commander)
|>  happen even of 25Mhz 386's. Also, the record to disk functions occasionally
|>  bomb and lock up on high speed 386's with IDE hard drives!!!
|> 
|>  SBlasters are nice but the drivers really suck.
|>  I think the hardware DMA/IRQ support could use a little work as well.
|> 
|> M Burkey

I have heard about problems with the 386's and 486's using the SoundBlaster.
Apparently, the SoundBlaster does not use "well-behaved" code.  This naughty
code conflicts with the caching of memory, and can usually be fixed by
disabling the ram cache for applications that use the SoundBlaster.  I don't
know if there are newer versions that are better-behaved, but the dealer
you purchased the 386 from should be able to tell you how to temporarily
disable the cache using software, if the machine did not come with a utility
to do this already.

Good luck,  and if anyone has anything different to say... FLAME ME.  I am
only relating information I have heard, and I am only trying to help.

Bjorn