• Do not buy an audio card from Echo Audio if you own a non-Intel Pentium-III chipset. My Apollo Pro (MSI 694D) board absolutely WOULD NOT work with an Echo Mia 24. After WEEKS of nightmares (crashes, squeal of death, lockups, no sound) the Echo support staff pointed this out. Yes, it is marked on the box and their website, I just didn't believe it. This is just here in the hopes that someone else who has the same trouble might find it.

  Update: It seems that ATI Radeon cards ALSO have trouble with VIA Chipsets. Change my reccomendation to "never buy a VIA P-III chipset". NVidia works just fine.

  Keywords: Windows 2000 Win2k Echo Mia crash lock lockup bug pegged fail freeze halt Radeon ATI

  Instead, I bought a Quattro (USB) from M-Audio. So far I have been very unhappy. The sound quality is GREAT, but It randomly stops playing sound (under ASIO only), and you have to change drivers or reload the app to fix it. I have reproduced this on two seperate Win2k systems, on three ASIO apps. This is with the 1.26 drivers. It stops making sound when ANY USB event occurs - even one on a totally different USB controller! Their support has acknowledged that it is a driver bug, and (as of July 26, 2002) it will be at least 8-10 weeks before a new driver is done.

  Update: M-Audio has had Beta drivers out for a few weeks now (as of December 07, 2002). The USB bug seems to be gone. Hoorah! My system spontaneously reboots every now and then, though. Back to debugging, guys.

  Update: It's been almost a YEAR since they confirmed this bug. Still no driver update. Every time I talk to them it's due out "within a couple weeks". Yeah, let's all hold out breath.

  Update: The 1.30.0.3 drivers work well. Finally.

  Update: The 2.0.0.2 drivers ROCK. After owning the product for almost 2 years, it's about time.

  Keywords: Windows 2000 Win2k Midiman M-Audio Quattro USB event ASIO crash drivers bug lock lockup restart bad sound audio freeze halt

• If you want to buy REALLY GOOD studio nearfield monitors, I suggest Mackie HR824. You can get them NEW for $1099 (plus shipping) per pair from B&H Photo/Video.

  Yes, I know the website may list them differently, but CALL THEM for their latest price. It is good. In addition, I convinced zZounds.com to give them to me for $1200 shipped (they have a price match guarantee). Zzounds had all the other stuff I wanted, which is why I went to them.

  Keywords: Mackie HR824 best price cheap nearfield studio monitor great

• I am not happy with my Behringer Eurorack MX802 mixer. It was cheap, and it works, but I have two major gripes:
  1) The headphones output volume is tied to the monitor output volume. That means that if I want to turn down the monitors (late at night, for example) but listen on my headphones - I can't, without turning the monitors off.
  2) I SWEAR (haven't proved it yet) that the left channel output from the mixer is at a slightly lower level than the right.

  Keywords: Behringer Eurorack MX802 levels volume uneven balance headphones monitor tied output

• How to get Ghost 2003 to map a network drive with a Broadcom 57xx NetXtreme gigabit ethernet controller:
  1. Get and unpack the Broadcom NDIS driver files
  2. Start to make a Ghost network drive-mapping boot disk
  3. Add a driver entry for 'Broadcom 57xx NetXtreme GigE'
  4. Open ndis file: b57.dos
  5. Set driver name: b57
  6. Set parameters:

     ; BusNum from 0 to 255 
     ;    BusNum =
  
     ; DevNum from 0 to 31
     ;    DevNum =
  
     ; PortNum or FuncNum from 0 to 7
     ;    PortNum =
     ;    FuncNum =
  
     ; LineSpeed can be set to 10, 100, or 1000
     ;    LineSpeed =
  
     ; Duplex can be set to half or full.
     ; LineSpeed is required when this keyword is used.
     ;    Duplex =
  

  7. Advanced tab
  8. Set autoexec.bat:

     rem ----- by TH -----
     rem without these, there is not
     rem enough low-mem or some
     rem such thing.  Yes, BOTH lines
     rem are needed.
  
     net start
     net start basic
     rem ----- by TH -----
  

  Keywords: Symantec Norton Ghost2003 Ghost 2003 Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx gigE gigabit ethernet bootdisk boot disk network map drive

Questions? Email me.