Delta Audiophile 192 - XP Problem Bug Fix - Freeze Crash on Boot Reboot

[entheon]

Description of problem: The system hangs during the driver's initialization phase in the boot sequence right after the "Windows XP" splash screen and right before the main logon screen.

Current Solution: device must be manually disabled in the System Device Manager control panel prior to shutdown... device must then be re-enabled after boot. this keeps the driver from attempting to initialize during the boot sequence, which obviously poses some unknown problems on older hardware. once the system is fully booted, the driver will load itself with no problems.

Apparently this problem only occurs with the Delta 192. And afaik only on XP/2000 based systems (but don't quote me on that) using older hardware. The M-Audio website recommends at least greater than KT233, and for example I've got a good ol KT133 chipset. My machine is a total champ, runs great, still blizkreig'n fast for my purposes, but old.

This "fix" is already known by M-Aduio but not documented anywhere that i can find, AND... the current solution sucks if i do say so myself, because it must be done manually and that's a real friggin PITA. Being the lazy bastard that I am, I never do a thing more than once if I can help it. I just know that no sane (or insane) artist no matter how technically skilled (myself included) will want to deal with remembering much less executing this time consuming cumbersome tiresome procedure each and every time the machine is used. now, with that said, i've figured out the solution to this little problem and it is, in fact, quite elegant.

There are three simple items which need to be done:

1 Download the command line version of the Device Manager utility known as DevCon from the Microsoft Website http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;Q311272 and I know that the microsoft site changes a lot so FYI a google search for "microsoft devcon" brings this page up as the first match. anyway, extract this file (iirc, you'll need to specify an easier to find place other than the default temp folder to which this archive usually wants to extract itself... maybe the desktop for example), and copy the "devcon.exe" file to the C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder.

2 Write two simple batch scripts, each to execute the devcon utility... one to enable the device, one to disable it... my personal scripts are as follows, though i'm not sure they are fully portable to other systems because of how i reference the "device ID" cuz who knows... maybe it's not unique enough... anyway, for those non-programmer types out there the process is simple: create two plain text files (this can be done by right clicking in any folder or on the desktop and selecting "New -> Text Document") with names and contents as follows (format is "name: contents")

enable-delta192.bat:
devcon.exe enable PCI\VEN_1412

disable-delta192.bat:
devcon.exe disable PCI\VEN_1412

so again, for the absolutely out there, this means the file whose name is enable-delta192.bat has IN it, one line of text which reads devcon.exe enable PCI\VEN_1412

3 add these scripts to their appropriate places in the startup and shutdown scripts folders. The startup folder is easy, that lives in the Start menu, so just drop the enable-delta192.bat script into the Startup folder of the Start menu.

The shutdown script was a little trickier to figure out the automation for, but after lots of caffeine, a few sleepless days of searching and lots of flame wars on the forums and on IRC... I finally found the answer:

there is a standard way within Windows 2000/2003/XP to add scripts and batch files to be executed prior to shutdown, and it's known as editing the Group Policy(s) for the machine in question. If you wish to know what you are doing then you can first read up a little on the documentation here...

Code Guru Forums - Windows Shutdown Scripts

and here...

Some Microsoft Sysadmin Documentation

otherwise just plunge in the first thing to do is to drop (a copy of) your disable-delta192.bat script into this folder...

C:\WINDOWS\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Scripts\Shutdown

that way it's accessible by the Group Policy shutdown script manager. this is not however the end of the story, one must still actually ADD the script to the list of scripts to be run at shutdown, which you can do by following these instructions...

open Start Menu -> Run... -> gpedit.msc

and navigate to:

Local Computer Policy -> Computer Settings -> Windows Settings -> Scripts (Startup/Shutdown)

and select and open up (double click) the Shutdown scripts item in the right hand pane, click the "Add..." button, click "Browse..." and then if you've followed the instructions to this point, your disable-delta192.bat script should be sitting right there, just select it, click "Open" on the browse dialog box, and then back in the "Add..." dialog box (the Script Parameters field should be blank in this case) click OK... click OK on the Shutdown Properties dialog box and close the Group Policy manager and you're done. tada, now that wasn't so hard... or was it?

oh and btw, if someone has this problem on a system other than XP/2000/2003, i'm sorry but there's no way i know of to actually acheive this type of nice automation you'll have to be creative and write a custom shutdown batch script like this

halt-delta192.bat:
devcon.exe disable PCI\VEN_1412
shutdown.exe -s -t 0

and then make a nice little shortcut link on the desktop... but BEWARE, don't forget to use this to shutdown instead of the standard start menu method, or you'll be stuck in the safe mode land again. ok... hope this has helped someone.

[George Necola]

you rule man

great advice!

[manning1]

entheon...
very good info.
but why go through all this when there are other sound card options for the pc ?
the main problem this shows is - and its a rule i follow...be very carefull getting into new v1.0 releases of something without testing.