SB AWE 64 - Major problems....

[sam]

My AWE 64 ISA (I know its old) was working fine and then one day it started to distort mp3s..... it is like a really crappy record.... pops skips, everything is wrong when I play Mp3s but WAVs work fine. It is on a BE6 II, Pent III 1Gz, 512MB....

Thanks for your help.

[Myself and I]

Firsy off i would get rid of that P3 and buy the iwill kk266 plus which already ahs the onboard sound that runs at 5.1 dolby.
I had the ISA SBAWE and i got rid of it and installed the soundblaster pci 5.1 and it sounds a whole lot better!
My games even run alittle faster since the sound is running off the pci bus instead of the ISA.
The kk266 plus by iwill and a 1333 mhz chip will blow away your p3 and the 1333 chips are unlocked so you can overclock that baby to 1450+. Another thing you will have a new soundcard which is comparable to the 60 dollar sb live that already comes with the mobo. So would you rather spend 117 and get a new mobo with very nice onboard sound that will blow away your awe 64 or would you just rather pay 60-80 on just a soundcard. Right now i have a old slot a -Tbird running at 1 gigertz and it is faster than the p3 1 gigertz and i bet i spent half as much as you did for my system. anyway
I am so much happier with the sblive 5.1 in my system now than the awe.

[sam]

Well of course throwing this system in the garbage and replacing it will fix the problem! I want to get this one working.

I already got hookups on the new KG7 with a 1.4Ghz Palomino slapped on it with Digital 5.1, Geforce 3.... lol. That is my UGM!

BTW. Of course Dolby digital 5.1 Surround sound is gonna sound better that a 16bit SB card... I figured that much. I dont even really need sound, this a system that I use for my digital photograpy and graphic design. lmao

Anyway, does anybody out there have any ideas on how to fix this problem I am having. Does nyone have a relevant answer???

[Myself and I]

your direct x could be messed up and the only way to fix that is to format and reinstall windows. If that dosnt work change your speakers

[DAppel]

I've had similar problems with two old boards, a SB16 and a JAZZ16 (now THIS is old !). Same simptoms, only difference was that mine didn't play waves nor any other sound correctly, only CD audio (as you would expect).

Run your computer with the case open, try to play something and touch the board. If it gets too hot (REALLY hot in my case), it may be the case to remove it and take it to some electronics repairing shop for analisys.

In my case, the JAZZ board was lost because it fried before a discovered the problem (don't remember now, a transistor or something that COULD BE REPLACED).
My SB16 had some capacitors replaced and is running fine on an old machine.

Be quick. The board only lasts about 10 days in this working condition.

Good Luck!