SB Live! & onboard sound?

*SOLVED* SB Live! & onboard sound?

I am building a new computer system which is almost complete however I am having difficulty with my sound card I kept from my last system.

System Spec:

Gigabyte GA-8IDX mobo
P4 1.8a Northwood
1.5GB PC133 SDRAM
Matrox G450 Dualhead DVI PCI
SB Live! MP3+
Adaptec 19160 SCSI Controller
US Robotics 56k Modem
Koutech USB 2.0 Controller

Seagate 18.4GB X15-36LP SCSI HDD
IBM 40GB 60GXP IDE HDD
Mitsumi FDD
Toshiba 12xDVD-ROM
Plextor 12x10x24 CD-WR


Now the problem is I cant get any sound out of the computer with my SB Live! everytime i try to use an audio application (Winamp, Windows Media Player, etc.) I get an error and sometimes the BSOD saying that the SB Live! caused an error.

I've made sure I've disabled the AC97 onboard audio and this is what is happening, I've even tried enabling the onboard audio thinking I could just select the SB Live as the primary sound source but that resulted in the same result.

After exhausting those ideas I pulled all the cards from the system except the G450 video card (PCI slot 1) and the SB Live moving it around to all the other remaining PCI slots and no success.

I'm sure the sound card is good I just was using it in the old system the other day and everything, drivers and all install fine on the new system (specs above) that I'm trying to use the card in but whenever I try and play sound it doesn't like it.

Does anyone have any idea what I can do to find a solution to this problem? Thanks for your help.

Strange errors.

It sounds like you've already done this, but let me double-check (I have a SB Live! 5.1 overriding onboard sound on a Shuttle 815ep board.)

Prior to installing your OS, you should set your BIOS option to disable the onboard sound.

You may need to move your soundcard around (as you've tried). I've found that it's slot position and position relative to other cards can make a difference. I believe I have mine in second PCI slot, counting from the AGP port, with nothing in between.

You might consider resetting your configuration data in BIOS (ESCD -- extended system configuration data), so that the onboard IRQs and such can reset themselves.

After doing all this, boot up and see if it sees your onboard audio as you go through the POST and ESCD data ...

Only after all of that, install Windows. (Which version?)

Maybe before doing all of this, look in your device manager and see what Windows is finding, and if there are any yellow exclamation marks or red x's on any devides.

Good luck! -- Paul

PS: Is this a VIA, SiS, or Intel chipset?

Sorry for not mentioning the OS, with so much info I somehow lost it, I'm running Windows Me. The chipset is the i845 (Brookdale, I believe). Currently there are no conflicts or any yellow exclamation marks or red x's on any devides. Windows thinks everything is good to go. Since my initial post concerning this I've updated the mobo BIOS to the most recent version which hasn't helped. I will try as you suggest and setup the BIOS then install windows and see how it goes.

Hmm, well, good luck! Let us know how it goes ... -- Paul

Creative posts updated drivers on their website.
You may want to check that out.

Also. I had a few probs with mine. Some of the pci slots share resources with others. Theres usually info about that in your manual. Try switching the cards around in the slots.

I reformat to see if that would solve the problem. I reformatted and before installing WinMe I made sure in the mobo BIOS that the AC97 sound, modem, game port, midi port, serial port 1&2 as well as the parallel port were all disabled & the resources (IRQ's)were all set to auto like you suggested. Then I proceeded to install WinMe with just the Matrox G450 video card installed, & no other cards. After the installation went well I restarted a few times then installed the G450 drivers and restarted a couple times. Then shut down and installed the SB Live and restarted installing the drivers, installation went well and after restarting I checked the device manager under system in the control panel and everything looked good no conflicts and no sign of the onboard sound however I get the same results as before.

Do you think it could be a problem with the G450 & the SB Live? They were using different PCI channels (example: G450 on PCI1 which is shared with PCI5 & SB Live on PCI2 shared with PCI6, while PCI 3&4 have dedicated channels).

I will head over to Creative and download the latest drivers and see if that resolves this problem, I'll let you all know.

Thanks for the suggestion, I hope this helps us narrow down the problem to a solution.

Shaun,

Thanks for the update. It sounds like you're doing a good job to do this right. I think you may well be on to something -- there may be a Matrox - Creative conflict. Good job on isolating the shared resources / PCI slots. Do you have the sb card in a dedicated slot or in slot 2?

So, you see no resource conflicts in device manager?

I would definitely install the most recent creative drivers to see if it helps. Otherwise, there might be something funny with address ranges that you have to email creative for help with. ?!? (I once had a strange problem specific to a TV card and Win 98SE -- I had to manually set a memory address range to fix the problem.)

Well, thanks for posting, and please let us know how the drivers do for you. -- Paul

PS: Have you gone to windows update to see if there are any updates you need?

I have tried the SB Live in the PCI3 & PCI4 slots since they have dedicated channels and they had the same result and currently I have the G450 in PCI1 (the one next to the AGP) and the SB Live in PCI2. Since these two slots are shared with PCI5 & PCI6 respectfully and there are no other cards in the system they essentially are on dedicated channels since they have no other card in the shared slot.

As far as resource conflicts windows shows everything ok no yellow exclamation points or red x's.

The SB Live is using IRQ's 5 & 10 (the #10 IRQ is shared with "ACPI IRQ holder for PCI IRQ steering") while the Matrox is using IRQ 11 which is shared with the "ACPI IRQ holder for PCI IRQ steering"

When I go to system information and then look at Hardware conflicts & sharing the SB Live & Matrox don't share any of the same shared resources. And everything under IRQ's in system information says OK

I have checked for Windows Updates and it seems that most all of them deal with security issues and nothing that would even remotely apply to this problem. I am running the final version of WinMe v4.90.3000 and if the problem was from the lack of security which those updates fix then I would have had this problem on the older machine which is running almost the same software.

I just finished installing the latest Creative drivers and no luck there.

With that in mind I think it has something to do with the hardware and not any software, but I could be wrong.

Before I post this reply I wanted you to have the link to this same post on another forum so you can see all the information thus far:

http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?postid=502627#post502627

Thanks for all the help I think we are closing in on the solution.

I just tested to see if it was a conflict with the Matrox video card by taking it out and installing my old ATI Xpert98 PCI video card with the SB Live after reformatting & reinstalling WinMe the result is the same, no sound and errors whenever I try to play a sound.

I plan to test the sound card to see if it works in my old system so I can find out if the card got messed up somehow or if it is a conflict between the mobo & the sound card.

I'll let you know

Wow. Well, that's some good detective work. It may well be a problem with the mobo vs. audio card. I hope that your sound card still works okay in your old motherboard. I had a similar thing happen with a modem. It didn't work in my new motherboard, and for some reason, it didn't work in the old after that, either. Was there any ESD?

Where did you buy the motherboard? Can they offer any support?

Also, did the motherboard come with any drivers that need to be installed? If so, those should be installed before any other drivers.

Good luck! You're doing a very good job of eliminating possibilities. -- Paul

Well, I through the SB Live in my old computer and sure enough it ran perfectly in fact I'm listening to it right now, but from the wrong computer Well that means that the card works

You know now that you mention it the Mobo did come with a CD but I had thought that it was just for the onboard audio and miscellaneous apps that I didn't really need.

I'll go back and look at that and see if I'm missing anything there, however as I recall I didn't see anything in the manual that said during installation to install software.

We're getting close though, it has to be the sound card and the mobo.

search for shipset drivers, Via chipsets need for certain problems like yours.

Well, I reformatted installed WinMe then the chipset drivers off of the CD that came with the mobo then installed the matrox drivers then the SB Live drivers and unfortunately it did not solve the problem

I thought for sure this was a good chance to fix the problem.

The only other thing I could think of was to put my yamaha sound card i'm running in my old machine in my new computer and see if it works And wouldn't you know it, it did it did work!

This tells me that there is no problem with the onboard sound being turned off and another sound card being used.

Now obviously if the Yamaha sound card works in the new system & the SB Live works in the old then I should just put them there and be done with it.

Unfortunately, that won't please me so I think I'll try and email my mobo Manufacturer and see if they can come up with anything.

Other than that I guess I'd have to get a new card. I then would like to get an Audigy MP3+ (really just the same thing) but I'm afraid that it would have the same problem.

Any comments, suggestions?

Hmmm, not sure. Nice job in tracking it down to being specifically a mobo-sblive problem. Yeah, the reason I mentioned the mobo disk is that sometimes you need to install chipset drivers. It really depends on the OS. I need mine for Win98SE, but not for XP.

Another thing you might want (not related to this problem) is the Intel Application Accelerator (since you have a P4 and Intel chipset). It tweaks the IDE controllers for faster transfers, and I believe it has some sort of pre-fetch tweaking for the P4, if you use XP or 2000.

I think you're definitely following the proper route in emailing / calling the mobo manufacturer for support. I'd also try the other route and go after Creative. I suppose you could tell them you're considering switching to their competitor, for Hercules.

Good luck, and please let us know if you find out anything. -- Paul

At this point, I have contacted both Gigabyte & Creative and gave them both this thread & the one on the other forum. Hopefully I will hear a responce from them with a possible solution.

Maybe Creative will send me a free Audigy if they guarentee it to work?

But truely I believe that there would be a great chance that the Audigy would have the same problem as the SB Live in which case I'm considering the Phillips AE (I think thats right).

I'll let you know if I hear anything

ShaunG said:

But truely I believe that there would be a great chance that the Audigy would have the same problem as the SB Live in which case I'm considering the Phillips AE (I think thats right).

Click to expand...

I think you're right -- chances are, the same thing will happen.

Have you tried another OS? I wonder if the problem might go away with a more modern OS such as XP or RedHat Linux 7.3. An OS upgrade would probably not cost much more than a soundcard upgrade, especially if you can get academic pricing.

Is there any way you can get your hands on a copy of Redhat 7.3 or Mandrake 8.0 or 8.2? (Since they're free.)

-- Paul

That is a good point about the OS possibley being the problem. However I think that if it was the OS then this would happen in my old system which I also run WinMe (but it does not).

I could be wrong about that analysis.

As far as another OS the only other ones I have is Win98 and W2K, and as far as upgrading to a newer OS I'm not all that excited about WinXP nor have I ever used another OS other then Windows.

When I made the move from Win98 to WinMe I had to check for drivers for everything and the experience wasn't very pleasent. I don't want to have to go through that again unless I build a brand new computer around the newer OS.

And besides WinXP has all that registeration stuff, I couldn't imagine trying to put in new hardware all the time MS would now you by name, driver licence, SS#, etc.

ShaunG said:

That is a good point about the OS possibley being the problem. However I think that if it was the OS then this would happen in my old system which I also run WinMe (but it does not).

I could be wrong about that analysis.
But each system used a different CPU and motherboard. Since you have W2K, I'd recommend giving that a shot and seeing what happens. (Why not? )

...I'm not all that excited about WinXP
Understood. For many purposes, 2K is faster, but on the other hand, XP's feature set is pretty decent, and its stability and NTFS implementations are pretty good.

You might give Linux a try for fun at some point. I still primarily use windows at home (I just reformatted and reinstalled and left linux off this time)

When I made the move from Win98 to WinMe I had to check for drivers for everything and the experience wasn't very pleasent.

That can tend to be pretty lousy, but it's a necessary evil. It's too bad you moved from 98 to ME -- many would consider that a downgrade. I can certainly understand not wanting to go hunting for new drivers all over the place, but really, it's a good practice to look for new drivers every now and then, anyway.

And besides WinXP has all that registeration stuff, I couldn't imagine trying to put in new hardware all the time MS would now you by name, driver licence, SS#, etc.

Click to expand...

lol. Well, actually, it isn't as bad as it's been made out to be. They don't collect all that much information. The registration and product activation are two separate things. For the former, it's completely optional, so you don't have to submit your name, rank, serial number, etc. For the latter, it is required, but it basically makes a hash from your hardware profile and hardware serial numbers to form a sort of computer ID and determine whether or not you're trying to install XP on too many different computers. Not much personal information, if any, there.

At any rate, though, I hope you do hear back from your motherboard and sound card drivers and get some information on how to proceed! Good luck!

-- Paul

I actually think that WinMe is the best Win98 version if you turn off system restore and do a custom install to uncheck a lot of the bloat ware just my opinion.

Well, I'll give W2K a try and let you know. I'm thinking of even going out & buy a Audigy in town and trying it (a lot of local retailers will take it back if it doesn't work) I figure its worth a shot.

I personally have always been a hardware person myself, but I realize hardware is nothing without software