Turtle Beach Multisound Classic - no response from Proteus

[Silent Loon]

Hi!

Has anyone experience with the Turtle Beach Multisound Classic?

I bought this full lenght ISA card some years ago (used) but was never able to install it. It seems to be a hardware problem, but I still have the hope that I have overseen something.

I installed the card on various hardware, ranging from a 486SX25 to a S370 based PC, allways with DOS and Win 3.1. as OSs.
I used the driver package from the Turtle Beach support site.
I think I followed exactly the installation instructions, including the entries in the config.sys and system.ini. I disabled video/bios shadowing in BIOS. I think I allways installed the "virtual MPU-401 driver" in Win 3.1 (when I was asked about that during driver installation).

Windows "wave" sound works (so the card is not completly dead) but the Proteus rack doesn't seem to work, neither does the "proteus demo".
From the diag program I receive the following message (after the first tests were sucessfull):

The DSP RAM test was successfull
The SHARE RAM test was successfull
Testing fast write-read

Error: No response from Proteus

After this, testing stops, you can continue pressing "c" but the program says that midi test are not possible due to the Proteus error.

Using msnddiag in dos, the system stops after "DSP RAM...successfull / SHARE RAM successfull..." and you have to turn the machine off (no warm reboot possible) .
If you use the dos diagnostics after testing it in win, you receive at the beginning of the test an additional "Error:  Probable memory conflict" message.

I would appreciate every idea, thanks!

[Cloudschatze]

How does the card look physically? Are there any visibly bent leads or damaged traces?.

If your Multisound is like the one I'm viewing a photograph of, then the EPROM for the synth section is socketed, right? I've had problems with this type of socket before. If you feel up to removing and re-inserting the chip, you can use something flat, like a blade, to bend one row of pins (or both) slightly outward, for a better connection.

[ShaiWa]

Sounds familiar.
Had the same problem years ago with my Gus Max.
Thinking it was defective i bought a Gus PnP.
Years later i tried the card on another Motherbord, worked!
Did optimize the bios setting for speed and the problem was back.
In my case (if i remember correctly) it was a setting that clocked the ISA bus higher than the 8MHz.
Also there was something with IO recovery time.
Have to take a look at the bios to see what the exact options where.

[Silent Loon]

Thanks for the suggestions!


@

Did optimize the bios setting for speed and the problem was back.
In my case (if i remember correctly) it was a setting that clocked the ISA bus higher than the 8MHz.
Also there was something with IO recovery time.
Have to take a look at the bios to see what the exact options where.

Currently the TB card is in a 486SX25 industrial system, there are very few options to  optimise the BIOS and I disabled allready the BIOS shadow function. There is the option to set system start up speed to "low" which is kind of an internal turbo button. So I did this (meaning the whole machine is running with 8MHz) but the only effect was a really slow 486 PC and the same error message appearing some seconds later.

How does the card look physically? Are there any visibly bent leads or damaged traces?.

If you feel up to removing and reinserting the chip, you can use something flat, like a blade, to bend one row of pins (or both) slightly outward, for a better connection.

There are some leads at the emu that are a little bit "uneven" I would say, but nothing looks really damaged. (Maybe I can post a picture)
Removing and reinserting the chip seems to be an interesting but also somehow final option.
 Are you sure this chips is controlling the Proteus operation?

[Cloudschatze]

Removing and reinserting the chip seems to be an interesting but also somehow final option.

You won't break anything by trying. I have both a synthesizer and an IDE controller card, neither of which "worked," that were fixed in exactly the same manner.

Are you sure this chips is controlling the Proteus operation?

Technically speaking, it contains the Program ROM, without which the 68000 is dead-in-the-water.

[Silent Loon]

Okay here's the picture:




Btw - there is a strange internal joystick connector on the top right - I wonder if this would accept a normal gameport connector with a midi kit added - so I could "stimulate" the proteus with some funky external midi data? I don't have the original midi cables...

Mhm... tomorrow it's time for some open brain surgery...har, har!

[Silent Loon]

I removed and reinserted the ROM chip - no effect.

Than a second close look (with a magnifier, you can't see it on the photo) made it obvious that the e-mu chip is loose - some pins are broken or not connected to the board at all, as if the previous owner tried to quarry out the Proteus.

So the card is dead - as it would require a soldering genius to fix the e-mu again (with uncertain results).

What a loss 

[Cloudschatze]

Ah, that's a shame... I don't really have the equipment to repair surface-mounted components, else I'd offer to repair it for you.

[shock__]

In case you haven't dumped that card yet, I could offer you to give it a try at repairing if you cover shipping.
While I'm not a total SMD pro, I've had some experience with reworking Amiga 1200 machines and building (larger) SMD (SOIP-20 chips/1206 components) based boards.

While results would be uncertain as you wrote, there's not much you could lose anyways