# Sound Card Choice



## Antneedshelp! (Oct 10, 2006)

hi, im looking to upgrade an a old sound card i have, are there any things i should take into account while doing this, like compatibility? are they hard things to make work well or relitavely straight forward?

any help would be great, thanks very much x


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

when you say old , how old, what system will it plug into?

For me an old card is an EISA card which rarely fits the average modern day mobo, which are mostly PCI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Industry_Standard_Architecture










Most I remember were 16 bit whilst depending upon how old would have been limited with regards to how many sounds were stored in the midi section.

There isn't reallly a great deal to upgrade though, so I am wondering whether I am understanding you properly about what you wnt to do.
Are you looking to upgrade it hardware wise, Software wise or firmware wise, which I must also admit I never heard of before. 

Old soundcards used to come with 4 stereo connctors on the back as well as the gaming port. 
The connectors were for line in , line out, speakers & microphone (monophonic)
There were some that had an IDE connector to allow a CD ROM to be hooked in without going to the multi I/O board but that's going back to 386 times. They started to die out with the 486 as dual IDE connectors became popular.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Most motherboards have a PCI slot, unless your computer is really old. PCI has became popular during the Pentium 2 Generation, and if you have a Pentium 3 or later, you can be certain that your computer has at least one.

This is what a PCI slot looks like:









If you have one, then you will have a very good selection of sound cards to choose from.


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## Antneedshelp! (Oct 10, 2006)

yes its a pentium 4 my motherboard is new and all the components ie. HD, graphics card and stuff but i used the same sound card from my old computer which i think i should upgrade

its creative soundblaster 128 PCI card

i think it might be the cause of some system crashes and it could do with being replaced anyway so even if its not the cause ill buy a new one.

just wondering if there are any considerations to take into account that could make everything run nice and smoothly

also any suggested cards? just looking for an average one, plays music but its nothing special not 7,000,000.1 surround sound or anything like that.

thanks for the help so far x


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Antneedshelp! said:


> yes its a pentium 4 my motherboard is new and all the components ie. HD, graphics card and stuff but i used the same sound card from my old computer which i think i should upgrade
> 
> its creative soundblaster 128 PCI card
> 
> ...



:grin: :grin: :grin: :grin: 

got me !!! 

not that you want to upgrade your sound card but you want to upgrade your computer with a new sound card ... :grin: 

are you sure it's your sound card that's the problem and not your drivers? Sometimes those SB;s are a pain to get going, they acceppt any driver and still half work, causing problems.
if you want to be prepared/ready for a slightly better sound system get a cheap 5.1 card. You might even find that a USB sound unit might be helpful ..
If you're going for a cheapie


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## Antneedshelp! (Oct 10, 2006)

i do fancy a 5.1 PCI card but i wasnt sure if there were much compatibility issues between soundcards and any other hardware?


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Antneedshelp! said:


> i do fancy a 5.1 PCI card but i wasnt sure if there were much compatibility issues between soundcards and any other hardware?


None that I have heard of but the best thing to do there is check the mfr site of the potential buy, then check the mfr site of the cards for your AGP/PCI

If you're a gamer, then ask the guys in the games dept.

I read an article earlier about games using the sound card to make some pretty wierd but critical calculations ... which can be a source of computer crashes, freezes and various other problems which I never knew about!
problem is that I can't find the webpage any more ..


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Found it, it was thanks to dai who put up a link to a site about power supplies earlier .. this site needs checking out, whose got the bio-plug so that I can browse while I am sleeping ??

http://www.playtool.com/pages/troubleshooting/intro.html

Article is called 
Troubleshooting Display Adapter Problems


> Fix #3: Disable Your Sound
> When people's computers are crashing only while playing games, they tend to blame their display adapters. Most of the time they're right. But one of the things that changes when you're playing games is how your sound hardware is used. When you're not running a game, the sound hardware only uses a very basic sound interface which is simple and reliable. But once you fire up a game, the sound is often generated using lots of complex calculations running on the sound hardware. It's not uncommon for the advanced part of the sound drivers to be a bit buggy and to cause system crashes. So if you're having crashes during games, it's a good idea to temporarily disable your sound hardware while you're troubleshooting. That way you know for sure that it's not the sound system which is responsible for your problems. If you're running Windows 2000 or XP, you can disable your sound hardware by going into the Device Manager, right-clicking on the sound hardware, and selecting "Disable". If you're running Windows 95, 98, or ME, you can disable it by going into the Device Manager, right-clicking on the sound hardware, selecting "Properties", and then selecting "Disable in this hardware profile". If your crashes stop after the sound is disabled, then you should update your sound drivers. New drivers are put out to fix bugs and compatibility problems so getting the latest drivers may solve the problem. If you have a sound card then the drivers can be downloaded from the web site of the company which made the card. If your sound is integrated into the motherboard, then the drivers can be downloaded from the company which manufactured the motherboard or from the maker of your computer.


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## Antneedshelp! (Oct 10, 2006)

cheers done fishin, whats an mfr by the way?


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Antneedshelp! said:


> cheers done fishin, whats an mfr by the way?


Sorry , old habits die hard...

mfr = manufacturer

I should realise not to use abbreviations, I don't understand a lot of them that are used in the forums myself!:grin:


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## Antneedshelp! (Oct 10, 2006)

hi, ive disabled the soundcard, hasnt crashed yet BUT i havent been on it long

while i was disabling it i found 2 unknown things on the device manager.

ive enclosed a picture: http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m57/acrowley06/soundcard.jpg 

the top one is a disabled device that i dont know what it is, anyone know? 

also the second arrowed point is something i dont know either, could that be conflicting with the actual soundcard? im not sure but ive never seen anything like it before and dont actually know what it is/if its unusual

thanks for any help x


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Antneedshelp! said:


> hi, ive disabled the soundcard, hasnt crashed yet BUT i havent been on it long
> 
> while i was disabling it i found 2 unknown things on the device manager.
> 
> ...



the top one looks like it could be a modem that hasn't been installed, whilst the second one looks like you have an onboard sound card as part of the Intel chipset ( 82801 = southbridge of chipset)

try going into BIOS and disabling it. It could be trying to access the same resources, IRQ etc.


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

I took a quick look at the history of this thread but don't see motherboard specs apart from that its a P4,

care to share?


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## Antneedshelp! (Oct 10, 2006)

Epox 4BDA533 motherboard

with 1.8 ghz pentium 4 processor 


thanks for the help

could it be this thing thats causing the crashes? and what an IRQ?


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

IRQ = interrupt request. it's how the CPU figures out and isolates diffrent slots 

causing crashes ? don't know but if you check those devices that have the X by them it might say whether there are conflicts or just that no drivers are installed. If conflicts then disable. try and find a driver for the modem. It's no good having hardware doing whatever it feels like .. it's not being controlled you don't know how its reacting.


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## Antneedshelp! (Oct 10, 2006)

hi, i took this screen shot

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m57/acrowley06/soundcard2.jpg

i updated the drivers of this device i didnt know and now it says it cannot start, any ideas?

i think its the motherboard's sound thing, id rather use that than the graphics card, might thelp the situation

do you think it would start if i removed the other sound card, the PCI one?

thanks x


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Maybe .... I think they could be conflicting.









go into BIOS and disable the onboard setting here

there used to be a setting in BIOS to allow a "reset" or re-allocation of Interrupts when re-booting. it was a "one shot" seek and allocate to avoid conflicts, but I don't see it in your BIOS settings, maybe it goes under a new name .. worth checking out.


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## Antneedshelp! (Oct 10, 2006)

hi, thatsnk that was a great help. done that, just need to test it.

ill keep you updated, thanks for the help so far


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