PCA Forums

alright...so here's the deal:

I have a computer, it works...all drivers are installed, everything runs fine. I get a new case. I take everything out of one case and put it into my new case. Everything goes well, except for my sound. I'm using ALL THE SAME HARDWARE & SOFTWARe...but now sound. I have a sound balster Live! I've had this card and my computer for almost a year now, there are now compatibility/IRQ conflicts. now, neither sound for the front speakers (one jack) or the rear speakers (the other jack) work. My soundcard also has a line out....this works. I took a set of headphones, pluged it into the line out, I have sound...I plugged my earphones into the front and rear speaker jacks; no sound. nothing is muted in windows, the card is securly in the PCI slot and the device manager detects the card. I have NO IDEA WHAT IS WRONG. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. This problem is in everything that uses sound, games, mp3's, CD's...anything. I've tried different programs to play music also...no dice. I am running windows 98 and the latest drivers for the soundblaster Live!

You probably didn't put all the cards back in the same slots they were in originally.

You almost certainly have a PCI IRQ channel sharing problem (this is NOT the same as an IRQ conflict, there are four PCI IRQ channels labelled A - D and all your PCI and AGP devices must share them). This problem does not affect ISA cards.

This problem is very common with NICs, some PCI sound cards (the SBLive in particular is VERY prone to it) and SCSI controller cards. These cards do NOT like to share a PCI IRQ channel I explain the problem in detail here with a fix: http://soldcentralfl.com/quakecoop/glfaq5.htm#5_9

Try moving the SBLive to another free PCI slot.

If you have no free slots available, or none of your free ones work, then make a note of which slot each card is currently installed in right now. Pull ALL your PCI cards except the video card and boot up. Make sure the system is working okay. If the problem consistently happens when playing a game, run that game now and make sure it's okay (most games will run just fine without a sound card installed by-the-way).

If the system seems stable shut down and install ONE CARD AT A TIME. Start with the sound card as that's usually the prime culprit. Make sure that the sound card does NOT share an IRQ with any other device. If it does, or the system acts up, move the card to a different slot until it's resolved.

Repeat this process with all the PCI cards starting with NIC card next if there is one.

Hope this helps...