MIDI but no WAV playback

[sleddog]

I've installed a cheapo PCI ALS4000 (Avance Logic) soundcard in this NT4 workstation. Driver loads in NT4 and everything seems normal, but WAV playback doesn't work. When I attempt to play a WAV file the MediaPlayer slider advances about 2 secs, then halts. No sound at all. But MIDIworks fine. Icon is in taskbar, I can adjust volumes, etc. But no WAV playback.

The card has been assigned resources that don't conflict with other devices. IRQ 10 is assigned by BIOS to the PCI slot the card is in (slot 2). On this Asus A7V PCI slot 2 is shard with the Promise controller, but I don't have/use that and it is disabled in BIOS. I have tried all other PCI slots and numerous IRQ assignments in BIOS without luck. The soundcard is also assigned I/O range 9000-907F. This also is unused by any other device (and there's no way to manually change it anyway). There is no DMA assignment at all.

Any idea why it won't play WAV files? I've been at it for 2 hours and I'm about ready to give up in frustration.


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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)

[mjc]

Have you double checked to make sure that MEdia Player is the default player for .wav files?

Does this machine have a modem that has voice capabilities? If so try disabling them.

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mjc
To ME or NOT to ME....

[sleddog]

Originally posted by mjc:
Have you double checked to make sure that MEdia Player is the default player for .wav files?

Does this machine have a modem that has voice capabilities? If so try disabling them.


It's the default. I have an external modem.

The non-playback problem extends to internet media as well, incl. RealAudio. In fact the *only* audio format I can find that works in MIDI.

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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)

[bassman]

Hey Sledd,
Does the Media player have a sinthisyzer display that shows soundwaves? If so does it show any sound comming from the WAV file? Did this media player come with the card or is it Windows? If with the card is it possible it does not support WAV fomat? I may be thinking to simple for your capabilities but I gotta ask. Many times my day has been saved by a laborer asking the simple question I was overlooking. Good luck

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If your not living on the edge, your taking up to much space!

[sleddog]

It the Windows Media Player that Microsoft foists onto us -- the latest version 6.4 for NT.

But the problem is deeper than a simple application problem. There's something fundamentally wrong with all audio on this system. Sound Recorder, for example won't play any file types, including WAV. Open a file, click play and it just sits there with the 'Play' button depressed but nothing happening -- no sound and no progress on the progressbar. The frustrating part is that there are no error messages, no clues to what is wrong. I don't know if it's an NT missing/corrupted file problem, misconfigured/conflicting resources, or just bum hardware.

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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)

[herbert]

"On this Asus A7V PCI slot 2 is shard with the Promise controller, but I don't have/use that and it is disabled in BIOS"

Try Enabling it.

[Paleo Pete]

Have you tried reinstalling drivers? Or completely removing the card and reinstalling it?

I don't know what NT uses that might be similar to Safe Mode in win98 but it might be worth a try, if you can totally remove the card and start over.

Also are you sure the card itself is compatible with NT? I don't know much about NT but I know it's sometimes picky about hardware...If you have an old Sound Blaster lying around maybe you could try it and see what happens, that might help you figure out if it's hardware, drivers, or configuration...

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Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[sleddog]

Originally posted by herbert:
"On this Asus A7V PCI slot 2 is shard with the Promise controller, but I don't have/use that and it is disabled in BIOS"

Try Enabling it.

I did. No luck. Also tried every PCI slot.

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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)

[sleddog]

Originally posted by Paleo Pete:
Have you tried reinstalling drivers? Or completely removing the card and reinstalling it?

I don't know what NT uses that might be similar to Safe Mode in win98 but it might be worth a try, if you can totally remove the card and start over.

Also are you sure the card itself is compatible with NT? I don't know much about NT but I know it's sometimes picky about hardware...If you have an old Sound Blaster lying around maybe you could try it and see what happens, that might help you figure out if it's hardware, drivers, or configuration...


Have repeatedly installed the card (in every PCI slot) and uninstalled/reinstalled the driver. No luck.

Removed everything in NT to do with multimedia/sound and reinstalled. No luck.

The card is supposed to be compatible with NT -- it comes with NT3.5 and NT4 drivers (and I'm using the NT4 drivers).

I had a SB16 ISA installed with previous motherboard which worked fine. I uninstalled it prior to upgrading motherboard and CPU. Can't use it because there's no ISA slots on this A7V motherboard. My kingdom for an ISA slot!

There are no DMA resources assigned to this PCI sound card. Aren't sound cards always assigned DMA resources?

I'm pretty much convinced its either a compatibility issue -- something to do with resource assignments -- or simply a bum card. When I get some time I'm going to try the card in a Win95 PPro machine I have. At least I can then maybe rule out defective hardware.


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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)

[mjc]

I did a little looking on Saturday and found at RealTek (http://www.realtek.com.tw/) generic drivers and a little info. One of the things I found there was that the I/O range was supposed to be around 388H-38FH for the synth and 220H-22FH for 'audio interface' and they had a driver version 1.5 on their ftp site but not on their http site (ftp://ftp.realtek.com.tw/) there are even some linux drivers.

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mjc
To ME or NOT to ME....

[sleddog]

Hats off to you, mjc.

On the Realtec ftp site I found a newer WinNT driver for the ALS4000, gave it a whirl and just woke up the household with a blast of traditional fiddle music.

Your effort is truly appreciated.


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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)