G'day all...

Looking for some help, I believe I know what one of the problems is...I just need to open up the case and look for the serial.

But I have a few Items in my Device Manager that come up with the yellow question marks...

Multimedia Audio Controller
Multimedia Audio Controller
PCI Input Device

I'm sure one of these is my sound card, which I believe is sound blaster, I just need to open up the case and get the drivers. if I Had to take a guess/stab at it, i would say that is one of the Multimedia Audio Controller...have no clue what the second Multimedia Audio Controller would be
nor do I have a clue on what the PCI input device would be, I thought it would be the mouse, but it works fine....

Any help would be great.

Cheers.

The mouse is not a PCI device. I would guess that it's a modem. Is there a modem installed in the system? Is there a modem recognized in the DM?

Hi

The PCI Input Device is almost certainly connected to the sound card - I've seen this with Sound Blaster cards before.

The fact that there are 2 instances of the Multimedia audio controller may indicate that there are 2 sound cards i.e. an onboard sound card & an off board one. If you have an off-board sound card (an add-on PCI card for example), then you'll need to disable the onboard (integrated) sound card. This is usually done in the bios.

If you're certain there's only one sound card however, then I suggest you simply install the relevant S/B drivers & see there's still any devices in device manager which have marks against them afterwards.

TV Capture cards tend to be flagged up as Multimedia Audio Controllers.
Modems tend to come up as PCI Simple Communication Devices.
A straight simple PCI Device entry could be connected to the graphics card, the chipset or even, as previously stated, hanging off SoundBlaster cards.

Thanks for all the replies and advice and help, sorry I haven't got back before this sooner. I have been busy with volunteer work for the past few days here.

I will be doing all the suggested advice tomorrow sometime during the day.

I have another question, I don't know if the hardware that is Unknown would cause this to happen or not.

But if I try to use a online scanner, such as Kapersky...it will run for about two minutes and then my puter will auto restart.

Before if I tried to reformat the drive, it would not allow it. I took my harddrive out and switched to another pc and reformatted it. When I tried to install windows onto it, it would install the RAID drivers and other drivers, then bring me to the "Start Setup of Windows," and/or "Enter Windows Recovery Console"...and I believe one other selection *cannot remember been up for too long here already.

When I would select Setup Windows, it would bring me to another screen and the computer almost right away would restart. As well I installed Speedfan onto my puter (probably should have used bios, for the same features..but i'm a little lazy at times), my temps give me Two Temps 1, a temp 2 and a temp 3...one of the Temp 1's are usually at 60.

I have three fans, just wondering if anyone knows what the second instance of Temp 1 would be, and it does get warm around my sound/video card...

Cheers all thanks for the advice, help.

Hi

Having an unknown device in D/M shouldn't in itself cause the system to reboot whilst running an online AV scan.

I'm a little confused though - you mentioned RAID drivers but you also only mentioned one hard drive. Do you only have a single hard drive? If so, why is RAID enabled? If you do have 2 hard drives, then which RAID level are you using and are both drives identical in size?

It may help to know which motherboard you have. If you don't already know this information, could you try running something like Aida32 or Everest. Look in the motherboard menu for the motherboard make/model or ID string.

Everest

Aida32

Alternatively, if you have a branded system, such as a Dell or HP etc, just let us know the exact model of system you have.

A lot of recent boards flag SATA drives up as being connected to the RAID controller which technically they are even though the drive(s) are not operating in RAID mode, typically the option to toggle them between RAID, AHCI and IDE/Legacy is found in the BIOS but regardless of this, Windows will still claim they're connected to the RAID controller.

Ok I will answer in order as I see them, sorry if I mess the order up.



I don't see a modem on my Hardware Device Manager list anywhere, but I am using a dlink wireless...installed on the harddrive and in use.



I have gone into Bios and turned off the integrated sound. This solved one of my audio Multimedia Control instances when I first start the computer up.

However I still have the PCI and the other instance of Multimedia Controller.

I have checked in the bios and cannot find the option to turn off for onboard video, and I don't see on the motherboard itself the jumper if there is one. I am going to look on the net and see if I can find a specified pic with the jumper itself pointed out in the pic. *Yes, I have very bad eyessight...* But I am trying~ lol.



Yes, currently I have only a single harddrive installed. I do not know how to disable/enable RAID, when I purchased the computer it had two drives. I don't know how to tell the levels of RAID sorry:( But I do know that one was a 40gig drive and the other was a 20 gig drive. Currently I have switched to a 60 gig drive.



Field Value
Motherboard ID 07/29/2005-SiS-661-6A7I4E1AC-00
Motherboard Name Abit SG-72 / ECS 661FX-M (Deluxe)

Another funny thing is, whenever I play in BIOS and then try to start windows it auto sends me into a loop of restarts haha. Then like I mentioned I have to wait the 10-15 minutes till I can properely start windows. When I looked at my temps in BIOS i noticed cpu temp was like 70...from what I know from previously readings this is not good. When I use speedfan I am taking it that might be the 60 that is read by that..but I am unsure....
Found another fan that I never noticed before so I have the 3 fans plus the heatsink, which I thought would certainly keep the computer cool enough but somehow I am starting to think that i am incorrect.

I might try taking out the harddrive, putting in one that I don't mind losing the information on reformat it, and install windows to see if it will work now, or if it will continue to loop of restarts.

But first I will wait and see what I get for feedback considering all the problems i've already caused myself haha.

This post has been edited by MossGeek: Aug 9 2008, 06:58 PM

Neil - thanks for the lesson on sata/raid controllers - whilst you are correct, my point is that the sata controller should only be recognised as a RAID controller if 'RAID' function is selected in the bios, which is shouldn't be if there is only a single sata HDD....


MossGeek:
Don't worry about trying to disable the onboard video in the bios. If you are using an off-board video card, then most systems with integrated video will automatically disable the onboard video anyway.

Re. the multimedia controllers in D/M. You said you disabled the integrated audio in the bios. Do you also have a PCI sound card installed? If you look inside the system, this will be a separate card inserted into a white slot on the motherboard. If so, then you just need to identify exactly what the card is & install the relevant drivers. You may need to remove the card & look for a model number printed on it. (Please make sure you pull the power completely first...!)

Aida/Everest seems to have reported 2 different motherboards - the Abit & the ECS. I've looked at both & concluded you must be using the ECS as the Abit has no sata or raid functions.
According to the manual for the ECS board, you have 2 SIS SATA controllers which can be run in RAID mode, plus 2 IDE controllers.
I'm guessing given the size of drive you are using, that the hard drive is ATA (IDE) not SATA. To check this though, I suggest you open up the case & have look - if the hard drive has a wide ribbon cable attached to it, then it's IDE. If it has a thin red cable, then it's SATA.
If you do have an IDE drive, then can you go into the bios & navigate to the INTEGRATED PERIPHERALS MENU, then select the SIS ONCHIP PCI DEVICE submenu. In there you should see an option called SIS SERIAL ATA CONTROLLER. Set this entry to DISABLED. Save the changes & exit the bios.


Re. temperatures - 70C is rather hot. It's not unusal for the bios to report a higher temparature than Windows (or Speedfan in this case) but either way, the temperature is still rather high.

If the heatsink & fans are clogged with fluff, then you'd be wise to defluff them. Other than that, you may need to either install a better heatsink and/or faster cpu fan.

Give us an update after changing the SATA setting in the bios etc

Ok I pulled the card and it was Creative Labs. I have the model and & serial numbers for this card off of the sticker it was printed to it.
Serial Number = TSB0090 130188947
Model Number = SBC090

Did a search for the drivers that I needed, and this little package came up
audiogisb0090.rar



You were correct Samm with the IDE drive, ribbon like cord from the back:)

Did this and rebooted. Had to wait my normal 10-15 mins haha...this always amuses me from which I have never seen this before but oh well its all good the comp still works~

When I boot and it comes to my desktop I still end up with the same two peices of hardware in my device manager will the yellow question marks.

PCI Input Device and Multimedia Audio Controller....

Have you tried installing that sound card driver yet?

Yes I installed the drivers, and no change. Had them installed before my last post.

And only the one card in the white slots which is this one. However in slot just below it are cables connected to card in above slot.

Somehow I believe it is connected near to front of my case inside as well I dunno how this person set it up or not.

I'm completely confused now! Any chance you could take a photo of this & post it in this thread?

It seems that my pics are too big in size to upload, and I don't quite know how to size them down to make it so they will be smaller in size. They range in size between 600kb and just over 1000kb in size. I might be able to upload to say like photobucket and then post the links? is that alright?

Strangely enough, i pulled out the video card, sound card, and the little FireWire card which I didn't see before that was sitting in between.
Pulled the ram, unlplugged the fans, and cleaned the fan on the video card *whew that needed that*. Cleaned ram, and all the dusty parts up.

When plugged back in and started her back up, went pretty good. No more of the Unknown Hardware ....they all went away.

But I still have that same problem with the core temp. Heatsink is not plugged or have a lot of dust in it. Although its not like the other heatsinks I have taken out so I couldn't properely get it out to see underneath it, but used flashlight to see down the sides and waht not. I am wondering if its problem is that the person that installed it screwed up with the paste used to seal it to the cpu.

Or now that I have fixed the original problem do you still want to see the pics or should I start a new topic? And would I need to start a new thread about the temp problems:(

Hi

Thanks for the update. Don't worry about the pics now - it was obviously one of those 3 cards causing the unknown device in D/M - probably the firewire card.

You may be right about the heatsink installation & renewing the paste is always a good idea so long as you do it carefully & use the right amount of paste etc.
I'm happy to give you detailed instructions for doing this if you wish but I would need to know which CPU you have and possibly the socket type (i.e LGA775/478/AM2/939 etc). You would also need to purchase some Arctic Silver 5 or very similar high grade thermal paste & something to clean the old compound off with (i.e either Arctic Silver Arcticlean or isopropyl alcohol).

When you check the CPU temps, do you also get a cpu fan speed reading? If so, what is it & does it fluctuate much?

NB. you can carry on using this thread to sort out the temperature issue, don't worry about starting a new one for this.

This post has been edited by Samm: Aug 14 2008, 08:36 PM