Help! where's the MIDI port in WinME?

[Doug Marshall]

I just got a new machine (a stripped down version of the roll your own Athlon on prorec.com). The only problem is Giga doesn\'t see a MIDI port. Is this a Win ME driver problem? How do I resolve this? I\'m expecting to use the game port MIDI device but there doesn\'t seem to be one although the port is physically there. Help, please, if you can! - Doug

BTW, I got the machine from Scott at www.advanceddesignky.com (\"http://www.advanceddesignky.com\") and it gets full 160 poly, no problem.

[Doug Marshall]

Just a little more info: the MOBO is an iwill KK-266R; it has VIA chipset; and integrated CMedia audio. - Doug

[Doc]

Since you have integrated audio on the motherboard, have you checked the system bios at startup (press delete key at startup) to see if there is an option for this to turn on or off?

[carlgt1]

By the way, even if you get it working I\'ve found the onboard IWill MIDI port to be crap. It totally hangs notes in Giga for any reasonably complex MIDI piece coming from my Win2K/Sonar box. I bought a parallel-port MIDI 4x4 (Egosys Miditerminal 4140) and that is much better.

[Doug Marshall]

Here\'s an update: After I pulled what was left of my hair out my vendor (Scott at Advanced Design) found a link to some older sound card drivers. I installed them (after all the Windows warnings) and voila! Game and MIDI ports appeared.

Carlgt1, The Iwill MIDI port seems to be working OK for me so far. The machine rocks along fine. At least for Bach and Franck. http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif
Doug

[Simon Ravn]

Why are you using ME in the first place - everybody knows it stinks.... http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

[carlgt1]

well good luck, but the on-board MIDI port couldn\'t handle 16 MIDI tracks of Holst \"The Planets!\"

[Doug Marshall]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by carlgt1:
well good luck, but the on-board MIDI port couldn\'t handle 16 MIDI tracks of Holst \"The Planets!\"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That probably presents a greater data glut than my live playing does. I play fast (so they tell me) but I can only transmit on a couple of MIDI channels at a time. http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

I use both 98 and ME on different machines and have found no appreciable difference in Giga performance one way or the other, btw. http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

[Simon Ravn]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Doug Marshall:

I use both 98 and ME on different machines and have found no appreciable difference in Giga performance one way or the other, btw. http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah that is probably true. But you sure get more problems and less stability with ME - and oh, not having DOS can be a bit problematic if you run into some serious problems and have to work in DOS....

[dontrii]

Simon,
Win/ME is relatively solid, once HW/drivers/settings are settled. I\'ve installed/run it on many machines, and HW/drivers/settings is always the culprit. ...\'course, those 3 things run into the 100 thousands of possible combinations . . . thus the problem. Usually takes some work. But a machine running week after week without a reboot is something I will not settle without.

If you really want to do DOS things under ME--as so many of us computer vets are wont to do when it\'s quicker--why not do a START|Run|Command and invoke DOS? Put a DOS icon in a command bar for quick use, just as before. So less of it is in firmware.

[Simon Ravn]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dontrii:
Simon,
Win/ME is relatively solid, once HW/drivers/settings are settled. I\'ve installed/run it on many machines, and HW/drivers/settings is always the culprit. ...\'course, those 3 things run into the 100 thousands of possible combinations . . . thus the problem. Usually takes some work. But a machine running week after week without a reboot is something I will not settle without.

If you really want to do DOS things under ME--as so many of us computer vets are wont to do when it\'s quicker--why not do a START|Run|Command and invoke DOS? Put a DOS icon in a command bar for quick use, just as before. So less of it is in firmware.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Well, that DOS won\'t do it. What I am talking about is a situation like this, which I actually experienced at work on an ME machine. Somehow the OS had done some ****up so some clusters used for SYSTEM.DAT were also used by Outlook Express! So SYSTEM.DAT was ruined and Windows ME would not boot. It then \'told\' me to run SCANREG - but you can\'t do that before you get into Windows http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif))))) The only way to solve this, since you can\'t get into DOS during bootup of WinME, was to make a bootdisk with himem.sys and everything installed, then find scanreg on your WinME system\'s dos-folder and run it there - that worked. But it would\'ve taken me 1 minute to do it if I could boot to DOS, instead of spending an hour on headscratching and bootdisk procedures (which require that you have another machine to make that bootdisk on, btw - or have one in reserve already). WinME stinks... http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif I run 98se and 2k here, so I can choose between a solid setup for audio (98se) or a solid setup for everything else (but games).