Anybody else have problems installing Soundblaster cards? (1 Viewer)

[JohanK]

I bought an OEM SB Live! 5.1 card this week and, for the life of me, I cannot get the drivers installed.
My home PC runs 98SE on a TYAN Trinity 400 mobo with an Intel slot1 P3 (733/133) CPU with 256/PC133 SDRAM (nothing is overclocked). I'm not sure if the soundcard is the problem (windows recognizes that a PCI multimedia device is available but states that it is unable to find a driver for the device) or if the SB is incompatible with my VIA chipset or something else.

I got so POed at the card that I went out and picked up a Philips Acoustic Edge card. I'd still like to know what the problem is though.
Anybody else have a similar problem or hear anything? Thanx.
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[Rob Gillespie]

It's a shame that probably the most popular audio card is also the one that gives the most problems. The SBLive! is the pickiest damn thing. It could be something as silly as changing the PCI slot.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Mine was a nightmare! Plug & Play, yeah, right! I think the conflict was with the Windows Media Player, and the worst part is, it wouldn't come out! I even rebooted into DOS and deleated the directory. Yep, it popped right back up! Oh, I hacked it out of the registry too.
Trying another slot might help. I did get mine going, but it was awhile back so I can't give you specifics on that. I am not sure, but you could check with Creative's site. they may have some suggestions by now.
This is why MS is in court. IE and the media player should be add ons, or they should be removable. You didn't say if you had ME or something else, but I am waiting for conflicts to pop up with their 'new' addition.
Glenn

 

[JohanK]

I did try a different PCI slot with no luck. 98SE stated that the drivers on the installation disk were not the correct drivers. 98SE did load up the SB gameport sometimes though. I downloaded some drivers off the net and all I got was the install wizard telling me that there was no SB 5.1 Live card installed in my computer...DUH!!!
BTW, the Philips card worked on the first try.
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[AndyVX]

Right now I'm debating between the Monster Gamer XP or the Philips card for my new computer that I'm building.
I'm leaning towards the XP mainly because I can't find the Philips card anywhere. (online Canadian store or retail)
Maybe Soundblaster cards are the defacto standard, but with all the compatibility problems that people always seem to have, I seem to wonder how the Soundblaster cards got to be so popular.
Andrew
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[Glenn Overholt]

Johan, if it says that your drivers are wrong, that is sort of a good sign. Can you ask Windows if it has some of their own to put in? It sounds dumb but if you can even at the least get a set of minimal drivers in, do that.
As I am still in the belief that Windows does try to improve its own drivers upon every reboot, wait a few days and then feed it the correct drivers, telling Windows that you just want to update them.
It may just take a few correct drivers at this point, so go slow.
Glenn

 

[Jesse Leonard]

JohanK,
I had the exact problem (but on another mobo). I had to disable COM2 in the BIOS to get it to work. COM2 and the SBLive! card were using the same memory address.
I am not sure if that is your problem, but it might be worth checking out.

 

[JohanK]

Glenn, I tried drivers for several Creative devices...none worked and, with all of them, Windows told me that they were the incorrect drivers for my device.
Jesse, did a resource conflict show up in the device mgr.? I had no conflicts (according to windows).
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[Jesse Leonard]

JohanK,
No, no conflicts showed up inside windows. I just started disabling things and changing PCI slots until I got it working. I then started searching around for some info and found out why it was causing problems (sharing the same memory address of another component).

 

[Jesse Leonard]

I also found this for you. Here is how your IRQ's are shared. (Just because Windows doesn't show a conflict doesn't mean there isn't one).
AGP, PCI 2, and PCI 6 shares IRQ. ISA does not share.
USB and PCI 5 shares IRQ.
PCI 1 and PCI 3 shares IRQ.
PCI 4 is free and does not share IRQ

 

[JohanK]

Jesse, I was using PCI4 as the 'slot of choice'. I tried PCI3 but to no avail. I have an SCSI controller in PCI2, a modem in PCI5 and an AGP vid card.
Since PCI4 doesn't share IRQ, is it still possible to obtain a conflict somewhere?
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[Glenn Overholt]

Johan - sorry, I think that came out wrong, but as for the conflicts, yes, there can till be some.
Under settings, control panel/system properties/device manager, you see the general listings under device manager.
With the 'computer' highlighted, punch up properties and look at those too. The main page may look ok, but the IRQ's and I/O's may show something.
As for my last post, I'll try and redo this. When you put the card in and boot up, Windows will try and find a driver that works, and if it cannot, it will ask you for one. (It may or may not work after Windows loads its own drivers up, but let it find its own). But after that, you can manually install your own under system properties too. If you get a message saying that is the wrong one ignore it and put yours in anyway, but just for that device in question.
Sometimes this works - Under the system properties the audio & video products are all listed. You could delete all of them, and it may ask for a reboot, but just say 'no' to that and try to load up the creative disk. If that does not work and you have to reboot, try and stop Windows from loading up any new drivers, and try again.
Glenn