sound card problems with XP...drivers maybe?...edit...i am so dumb!!!

[hulkster]

ive upgraded my mame pc to xp recently from 98se (well, i did a clean install, not an UPGRADE per se) and i have a Soundblaster Live! Value card.  the model number is CT4870 and ive tried my damndest to get this retarded thing to work!  i had sound on my 98 machine no problem, and yes i have my speakers hooked up correctly because at one point, i was installing some drivers and i had to restart, well it played the windows exit music when i was shutting down so i thought i had found the right one, but once i restarted it didnt work anymore!  ive been to creatives site and tried to get the right drivers.  ive even been to driverguides.com to get drivers and i installed those.  i have all the windows updates but still no sound.  nothing is on mute, so i know its a sound driver problem.  what im wanting is maybe for someone to point me in the right direction of the correct set of drivers for me to use.  this is the exact name of what i have in my pc....

Sound Blaster Live! Value HP / NEC OEM  model# CT4870

hopefully somebody cant point me in the right direction.

[DaveJ-UK]

XP should ---tallywhacker--- up the sound blaster live automatically.

You should certainly NOT just go downloading and installing everything sound blaster related you can find!

What I would do:

Uninstall everything sound blaster related.
Reboot
Go into system properties / hardware
See if there is a plink "(!)" by the sound device
If there is, read what it says!
Delete it, then hit F5
It may well pick it up at this point and your done
If not, reboot (never does any harm!)
Open up your case and remove the card
Boot up and make sure everything else is working OK
Shut down and put the card back in a DIFFERENT PCI slot
It SHOULD be working fine by now

I expect you have an IRQ sharing issue. You can check this and deal with it in system properties. Easiest just to change the slot it's in though.

[Witchboard]

I'm not sure if this is what you did, but rule #1... NEVER update drivers through Windows Update.  Every time I've done this, without fail, it causes the device to stop working.  After that, it's like pulling teeth to get the thing working again.  If you haven't already installed all your emulators and games, I would almost suggest starting from scratch.  If you didn't do the above then I think Dave's suggestions would be the best way to go.

If at all possible don't place a PCI card in the slot just below the AGP.  Usually they share an IRQ, well, that's the way I remember it being anyway.  Also, make sure if you have onboard sound you have it disabled in the BIOS.

[hulkster]

hmm...well the onboard audio might be the problem, so ill go try to look at that in my bios.  as for uninstalling everything, what is the best way to go about installing it all without formatting.  ive already got the mame stuff setup so formatting is not such a good idea.  

[barvaz]

hmm...well the onboard audio might be the problem, so ill go try to look at that in my bios.  as for uninstalling everything, what is the best way to go about installing it all without formatting.  ive already got the mame stuff setup so formatting is not such a good idea.  

Uninstalling Windows and all programs?

If your file system is FAT, boot from CD or floopy, go to command prompt, rename the "Windows", "Program Files" and "Documents and Settings" directories to something else (if you have enough HD space and want to backup these, if not needed just deleted them but be careful, you might have something you need there). Then perform a clean XP install (don

[hulkster]

yuck!  there has got to be a better way to uninstall the drivers!

[DaveJ-UK]

Uninstalling Windows and all programs?

If your file system is FAT, boot from CD or floopy, go to command prompt, rename the "Windows", "Program Files" and "Documents and Settings" directories to something else (if you have enough HD space and want to backup these, if not needed just deleted them but be careful, you might have something you need there). Then perform a clean XP install (don

[hulkster]

yeah um, the reason why it wasnt working is because i had the speakers plugged into the motherboard audio instead of my sound card.  feel free to smack me upside the head at any time.

[Witchboard]

and yes i have my speakers hooked up correctly because at one point, i was installing some drivers and i had to restart, well it played the windows exit music when i was shutting down so i thought i had found the right one, but once i restarted it didnt work anymore!

You mean they unplugged themselves from one port and plugged into another on reboot?  I need some of those cables!!


Just messin' man.