Here's a strange one that's been plaguing me for a while....

System...MoBo Chaintech KT133 (onboard sound, disabled in BIOS)...NVidia TNT2...SB Live 1024...(Memorex DVD-ROM, Plextor CDRW)

originally had lots more things in but problems abounded so tried to build from bottom up. Surprised that faults happened only when sound card installed

This is what happens :

I have Win98SE and Win2kPro dual booted...

Win98SE - locks up randomly - generally when maximise/minimise windows (ie completely hangs, no response)

Win2KPro - randomly reboots itself, generally when making extensive use of DVD-ROM (eg installing Office, ripping CD's - for backup purposes :-P)
- hangs on internet

Initial thoughts are -
is the soundcard ready for the bin (to be tested when I can steal my girlfriends soundcard !)...if not...
is there somewhere other than the obvious "OnChip Sound" to disable in the BIOS ?
do I need to tweak some settings elsewhere in the OS ?

Bearing in mind here that problems only appear when soundcard is in there - tried for as long as I could bear without sound and not a sniff of a problem (thought it could be heat/memory)

Oh yeah, and I'm using the Live! 3.0 on there, although the problem is still there when I set it to not start with Windows.

Anybody got any ideas other than the sound card is sh*fted ?

Answers on a postcard to "Miffed IT support staff in wrong profession"

Ta
MagooUK

It seems that there have been a lot of problems with that chipset/ soundboard combination, and it seems that there is no definitive answer. Some blame VIA and others blame Creative, but it seems to be a probelm between the VIA chipset drivers and the SB drivers. Here are some tips that may be useful for any VIA chipset MOBO and SoundBlaster cardHow can I make my system stable with a Soundblaster Live! card? (http://home.wanadoo.nl/howland/kt7faq/faqsound.html#How%20can%20I%20make%20my%20system%2 0stable%20with%20a%20Soundblaster%20Live!%20card?) and some of the other fixes I've seen are current drivers for both the MOBO and soundcard (although I have seen some suggestions to experiment with a couple of different versions of each to find which set works best on your system.....)

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/highrise/11/index.htm)

Vive diu prosperaque!


[This message has been edited by mjc (edited 05-16-2001).]

If I remember correctly, there are two places to go to in the bios on the Chaintech to fully disable the sound......sorry, I cant remember them tho....just browse through all of the tabs in bios to be sure.

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Will XP save Me ?

OK then, I can't find another BIOS setting to disable sound - unless it isn't as obvious as "Disable Sound here" anyone have any ideas what this may be ?

To save messing around with unloading and reloading VIA/SB drivers, does anyone foresee any problems with me exchanging the SB for a Guillemot Muse XL (similar specs...well, a bit less). Any known problems with this soundcard that I should know about ?!

ta
MagooUK

Don't know, the problem seems to be with SB cards mainly, although I heard of other cards causing problems too. Most of the problems seem to be with SB16 emulation, it seems if you don't have any old DOS games that you want sound in you can leave out the emulation and eliminate some potential problems...not quite sure what the options are in the SB install package,but there should be one to allow you to pick and choose which components to install, just leave out the SB16 emulation.

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/highrise/11/index.htm)

Vive diu prosperaque!

Having an ASUS A7V133 board with on-board sound and the SB Live 5.1 Platinum...the mobo manual called for disabling the on-board both in the BIOS and via jumper on the mobo. Until both were done I had problems.

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savoire faire ist everywhere...