That bas.tard soundblaster Live

WhiteWashMan

i had the same problem. exact same problem. exact same network card cept i had the full live card
at the end of the day i got rid of the sound card coz it just kept f*cking up too much on my system coz it uses about 50 million irqs!
mind you i have onboard sound which im sticking to coz its a kick ass card anyway so at the end of the day it didnt really matter!

do you have onboard soundcard or did you have a pci card?
the sound card usually uses irq 5. network cards usually work of 11, but i think the live card likes to use that one, so you may well have to go mix and matching irqs to get the bugger to work.
best of british to you mate!

harVee

yeah, so did i have that problem just after christmas.

my sb irq is now set at 10 and it works alright but i had to get the m/board fixed.

also i had a prob when i installed the card in october. i had to disable an onboard ess card and mix things up a bit(the memory ranges i had to change for a few cards manually which was a pain in the a$$).

the weird thing is that when i got the pc back last week the card would work for a while and after about an hour the sound would just fade away and not come back, like the card was overheating or something.

i dunno, still can't get it to work in dos

harVey

Excelsior

i got a soundblaster Live value card a few weeks back (thanks to the genius of phil)
and I installed all the drivers and software packages without trouble. The actual software loads up fine, the drop down menus are all active- everything seems hunky dory, but there is no sound. At all. which makes me angry at the sound card. The card itself is definitely plugged in to my drives correctly. Surprise surprise windows notifies me of no conflicts but did someone have a similar problem with an ethernet card conflict? I have a bog standard trust network card. Will I have to meddle with irq and ports and messy stuff to make my R.E.M. dvds sound great? Please help.

elexes

nice to see that everyone is B!tching about this card so as long as thisthe lets b!tch about the card i might as well start . firstly when i got it it ****ed up my cdr scsi card and then went on to help stop hearing sounds . right now its not to bad what did i do to it again . ill rem in a while and mail you . but there is a sound degrading in it and i dont think its working as well as my last which i got when the p75 was the best cpu you could get so thats around what 4-5 years old well best of luck withthe card

_CreeD_

Oh dear.... I've fitted 2 so far, Value and full. Once you work out the IRQ problems (Which could happen on any performance card) it's brilliant.

Just make sure it's not sharing an IRQ (It will not necessarily show up as a conflict, make sure you check all IRQ resources from Dev-Man / Computer). If it is just move the card and reset the MBD's NVRam.
If you're not getting CD audio make sure that whichever input you're using is selected and unmuted (Ie. by default the Launcher mutes the CD-SPDIF connector, LiveWare3 does this every time the damn thing is launched.....Ggggrrrrrrrr......).

Are you definitely using the correct output?

Is 'Digital Output Only' ticked in Advanced Volume Properties (Shouldn't be unless you have one of those kinky 2500 Digital Speaker sets)?

Okay, these are kinda obvious, no offense intended. But this is more of a quick guide to a newbie you guys might have put off slagging the card.

elexes

ye i knew all that but the thing wouldent work well anyways i got it working ages ago . but its always conflicting with somthing .

harVee

further update

i put in a voodoo 3 lastnight.
to install the voodoo, it took about 20 minutes.
to fix all the sb live conflicts it took about 5 hours. i didn't mind doing this when i was putting an 8bit sb into my 25mhz (sx btw) 386 but in the days of p'n'p, ppl should not have to do this.

although that said it makes two pairs of sh!t pc speakers sound a hell of a lot better than they should.

harVey

WhiteWashMan

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Okay, these are kinda obvious, no offense intended. But this is more of a quick guide to a newbie you guys might have put off slagging the card.

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no offence mate, but i reckon most ppl here are actually capable of installing a plug n play card.
some people have had the cards and they go in fine....but seems to me that a lot of ppl have had real trouble with the card.
i had 2 frustratu=ing days with the full priv=ced card...190 quids worth.
if you paid 190 quid for a card, would you really like to spenf=d hours rebuilding your pc? id say not.
im not a newbie, and i'll slag that card of if i want

Gerry

Harvey you muppet-meister!

Excelsior

In reality (sorry for that outburst, lack of sleep- too much coffee) my soundblaste ris now working brilliantly. Phil came and sorted out the irq channels like an angel appearing in an orphanage and handing out pickachu teddies. It rocks excellently now, and will get much better when I ahve a sub woofer and 4 speakers, so Sutty, you must get me those speakers. Otherwise my Britney Spears cd will never have the sound range it deserves.

shank

Yeah they're peculiar fargin cards alright, went into my first puter in 10 mins, took 2 hours (messin wif bios n' so forth) to get it workin with my new system and i'm still not sure exactly how I got it fixed.

_CreeD_

WW, no offense taken. But my point stands. 90% of SBlive probs are IRQ related.
90% of those are down to the fact that most folks don't realise that PCI/AGP IRQ's are BIOS assigned, on a slot by slot basis. I've seen this stuff many times on some Hardware forums. I had the problem and fixed it in a few mins with those steps because I'd seen it before, hopefully they'll help someone else do the same.
So, no I don't think folks on this board are newbies, but it's an easy thing to miss (As evidenced by the solutions eventually found).
Technically a PCI card isn't really Plug N Play anyway. PnP was developed to let ISA cards behave more along the Lines of PCI (as regards resource allocation), with the Addition of the ability to alter those resources dynamically via software - you cannot alter a PCI card's IRQ this way.
I thought I'd give way too much info rather than too little.

Okay, so I also tend to go into lecture mode when Im bored......

[This message has been edited by _CreeD_ (edited 31-01-2000).]

Excelsior

Novice that I am and all, I did manage to take the card out of its box, AND even the bag. (it was a strange bag, not like a grocery bag, but a thick polyethelyne, I wonder why?) Then I hit my head against the case until it opened. With that done, I put on my clean suit and took my pc and myself into my surgery and squashed the card into some hole on a green piece of plastic. When I was doing that a black box with a gold chip in it fell out, but I glued that back on. Then I glued some lego pieces between my cd and dvd and the soundcard. It still doesn't work. What could have gone wrong. Help me, I am a useless newbie. I know about non-computer things like architecture, and pasta and women. HEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPP me because I am dim.

Oh wait, the pc wasn't plugged in. That is that sorted. Now to fix my cup holder. It is made by cd. Well, at least it says cd on the tray that pops out.....

sutty

hi kev

you need to get me the money by 5th of feb
and theres only two speakers and the 350sub.
(just making sure you know that)
there not a 4. sound system

WhiteWashMan

none taken.
just think for that kind of dosh youd expect it to be a little better bahaved.

sutty

just like to say that I'v never had any probs with my live apart form haveing it in the pci slot that shears the IQ with the agp slot
fixed that in two min.
and for the money i payed for mine its all worth it (£17 hehehehehe)

Canaboid

The main problem is with IRQs. There isn't a bleedin' nuff of em. Take one PC, add modem, 3d card, n/w card and some other stuff and under 95/98 theres none left for 'owt else. One tip that hasn't been mentioned is disable LPT and comm ports (if not being used) BEFORE installing sound card.

_CreeD_

Yup, made easy by going USB.
Also disable that silly SoundBlaster DOS emulation. When's the last time you really needed it?.........

Sonic

dump the dos emulation SORTED! and dont be afraid to juggle the system resources , my network card NEEDS irq5 so i TOLD mr sound blasta to fo to 7

WhiteWashMan

and get an external modem