No sound card recognised

  • Thread starter Thread starter Terry Pinnell
  • Start date Start date
T

Terry Pinnell

All my attempts to get some audio on the newly installed XP Home
installation have failed so far.

This is the 10 year old PC described most recently in the thread 'PC
almost at standstill'. Now a misleading heading, as it's running at normal
speed since I replaced the ailing Maxtor with a refurbished 40 GB HD (and
removed the other).

The PC was delivering audio from its Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card before
the crashes. But now everything I try ends up with messages implying no
audio hardware device is recognised.

Can I assume that this is exclusively a h/w issue and not due software
installation mistakes by me, such as installing the wrong driver, or the
wrong sequence of driver, etc? If so, presumably I should next try
unseating and replacing the card itself, and any connections to it?
Anything else I can try?

The issue is complicated by the original 2001 set up CD for this 'SB Live'
being scratched. As reported in that earlier long thread, it causes a
reboot when used. That's a first for me - anyone else ever seen that
happen?

Should I be able to get audio EITHER from the sound card, or from the
'Onboard PCI Audio'? I have enabled that setting in the BIOS, but still no
sound.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/Athlon-Onboard-PCI-Audio.jpg
 
Terry said:
All my attempts to get some audio on the newly installed XP Home
installation have failed so far.

This is the 10 year old PC described most recently in the thread 'PC
almost at standstill'. Now a misleading heading, as it's running at normal
speed since I replaced the ailing Maxtor with a refurbished 40 GB HD (and
removed the other).

The PC was delivering audio from its Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card before
the crashes. But now everything I try ends up with messages implying no
audio hardware device is recognised.

Can I assume that this is exclusively a h/w issue and not due software
installation mistakes by me, such as installing the wrong driver, or the
wrong sequence of driver, etc? If so, presumably I should next try
unseating and replacing the card itself, and any connections to it?
Anything else I can try?

The issue is complicated by the original 2001 set up CD for this 'SB Live'
being scratched. As reported in that earlier long thread, it causes a
reboot when used. That's a first for me - anyone else ever seen that
happen?

Should I be able to get audio EITHER from the sound card, or from the
'Onboard PCI Audio'? I have enabled that setting in the BIOS, but still no
sound.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/Athlon-Onboard-PCI-Audio.jpg
Click to expand...

If you look in the "Others" menu section, there are older sound cards
mentioned. I was hoping to find a driver probe application, that would
probe the card and identify it. But as it stands, you're going to need
to "name" your card, to make any progress at finding a driver.

http://support.creative.com/Products/product_list.aspx?catID=1&CatName=Sound+Blaster

This can be especially painful, if you happened to buy one of their
"OEM" or "white box" cards, at a reduced price. They might come
with no driver CD, and then you'll be stuck searching for the
drivers.

If I pick Sound Blaster 5.1, I get a driver here, but this might
not be the same thing as Sound Blaster *Live* 5.1.

http://support.creative.com/Product...SET=prodfaq:PRODFAQ_14184,VARSET=CategoryID:1

If I use this listing...

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

1102 100a SB Live! 5.1 Digital OEM [SB0220]
1102 4001 E-mu APS
1102 8022 CT4780 SBLive! Value
1102 8023 CT4790 SoundBlaster PCI512
1102 8024 CT4760 SBLive!
1102 8025 SBLive! Mainboard Implementation
1102 8026 CT4830 SBLive! Value
1102 8027 CT4832 SBLive! Value
1102 8028 CT4760 SBLive! OEM version
1102 8031 CT4831 SBLive! Value
1102 8040 CT4760 SBLive!
1102 8051 CT4850 SBLive! Value

those all seem to be based on the same design, EMU10k1 chip
and SB0220 card. If you can't find a driver, it is possible
one of the other card names will get you there. (The INF
file in the driver package, might list all of those cards
as applicable.)

Sorry to make this so difficult, but without a driver probe
tool, it's bound to be messy. Creative are "SKU crazy" when it
comes to having too many SKUs and too many products that
do the same thing.

You could try the driver CD in the box, if there was one.
A white box card might not have one.

Paul
 
Paul said:
Terry said:
All my attempts to get some audio on the newly installed XP Home
installation have failed so far.

This is the 10 year old PC described most recently in the thread 'PC
almost at standstill'. Now a misleading heading, as it's running at normal
speed since I replaced the ailing Maxtor with a refurbished 40 GB HD (and
removed the other).

The PC was delivering audio from its Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card before
the crashes. But now everything I try ends up with messages implying no
audio hardware device is recognised.

Can I assume that this is exclusively a h/w issue and not due software
installation mistakes by me, such as installing the wrong driver, or the
wrong sequence of driver, etc? If so, presumably I should next try
unseating and replacing the card itself, and any connections to it?
Anything else I can try?

The issue is complicated by the original 2001 set up CD for this 'SB Live'
being scratched. As reported in that earlier long thread, it causes a
reboot when used. That's a first for me - anyone else ever seen that
happen?

Should I be able to get audio EITHER from the sound card, or from the
'Onboard PCI Audio'? I have enabled that setting in the BIOS, but still no
sound.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/Athlon-Onboard-PCI-Audio.jpg
Click to expand...
====================


If you look in the "Others" menu section, there are older sound cards
mentioned. I was hoping to find a driver probe application, that would
probe the card and identify it. But as it stands, you're going to need
to "name" your card, to make any progress at finding a driver.

http://support.creative.com/Products/product_list.aspx?catID=1&CatName=Sound+Blaster

This can be especially painful, if you happened to buy one of their
"OEM" or "white box" cards, at a reduced price. They might come
with no driver CD, and then you'll be stuck searching for the
drivers.

If I pick Sound Blaster 5.1, I get a driver here, but this might
not be the same thing as Sound Blaster *Live* 5.1.

http://support.creative.com/Product...SET=prodfaq:PRODFAQ_14184,VARSET=CategoryID:1

If I use this listing...

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

1102 100a SB Live! 5.1 Digital OEM [SB0220]
1102 4001 E-mu APS
1102 8022 CT4780 SBLive! Value
1102 8023 CT4790 SoundBlaster PCI512
1102 8024 CT4760 SBLive!
1102 8025 SBLive! Mainboard Implementation
1102 8026 CT4830 SBLive! Value
1102 8027 CT4832 SBLive! Value
1102 8028 CT4760 SBLive! OEM version
1102 8031 CT4831 SBLive! Value
1102 8040 CT4760 SBLive!
1102 8051 CT4850 SBLive! Value

those all seem to be based on the same design, EMU10k1 chip
and SB0220 card. If you can't find a driver, it is possible
one of the other card names will get you there. (The INF
file in the driver package, might list all of those cards
as applicable.)

Sorry to make this so difficult, but without a driver probe
tool, it's bound to be messy. Creative are "SKU crazy" when it
comes to having too many SKUs and too many products that
do the same thing.

You could try the driver CD in the box, if there was one.
A white box card might not have one.
Click to expand...

Thanks Paul, good to still have you on the case.

But I'd appreciate starting with the real basics please before focusing on
finding the Creative driver.

I'm wondering if you saw my last two paras? Maybe I should have started
with those instead of describing the driver aspects, sorry.


That's why I can't simply do the obvious.

And FWIW here again is the screenshot from the previous 'standstill'
thread showing all 4 of the ancient CDs I turned up as potentially
relevant:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/Old-CDs.jpg

--------------------
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/Athlon-Onboard-PCI-Audio.jpg

I've worked with it in both Disabled and Enabled states. That
image was an old, pre-crash photo, when the PC was running OK, including
audio.

--------------------

So in summary I'm badly in need of a methodical approach that essentially
starts from scratch. A reassuring starting point would be getting a beep
out of my PC speaker!

Should I be able to achieve that with NEITHER 'Onboard PCI Audio' enabled,
NOR an independent sound card installed? If so, how?

When buying my refurbished HD last week from my local High Street computer
shop I learned that he occasionally refurbishes old PCs too. I'm guessing
he rarely has the original setup CDs. So he must tackle it with the sort
of grass roots approach I'm seeking.
 
Paul <[email protected]> said:
You could try the driver CD in the box
Click to expand...

Read his post, he said the original driver CD is unusable.

Terry: Creative drivers are a nightmare. You need to find the CTnnnn or
SBnnnn model number on the card, then identify the main sound chip by
reading the markings on it and search for drivers for that combination.

http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=46261

Also, boot a Linux live CD and run 'lspci' at the shell prompt (aka
command line). Look for the line that refers to the sound card and try
searching on that string.

Crazily, even Creative cards with the same CTnnnn model number can have
a different audio chip and thus need a totally different driver. And
that's before you get into the 'value added' (OEM) features which all
need different permutations of the drivers.

The fact that there are several subtle variations of the name
"Soundblaster Live" doesn't help. It might be easier and quicker to
chuck it out and bung in a cheapo card for a few quid off ebay, or use
the onboard.
 
Thanks Paul, good to still have you on the case.

But I'd appreciate starting with the real basics please before focusing on
finding the Creative driver.

I'm wondering if you saw my last two paras? Maybe I should have started
with those instead of describing the driver aspects, sorry.



That's why I can't simply do the obvious.

And FWIW here again is the screenshot from the previous 'standstill'
thread showing all 4 of the ancient CDs I turned up as potentially
relevant:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/Old-CDs.jpg

--------------------

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/Athlon-Onboard-PCI-Audio.jpg

I've worked with it in both Disabled and Enabled states. That
image was an old, pre-crash photo, when the PC was running OK, including
audio.

--------------------

So in summary I'm badly in need of a methodical approach that essentially
starts from scratch. A reassuring starting point would be getting a beep
out of my PC speaker!

Should I be able to achieve that with NEITHER 'Onboard PCI Audio' enabled,
NOR an independent sound card installed? If so, how?

When buying my refurbished HD last week from my local High Street computer
shop I learned that he occasionally refurbishes old PCs too. I'm guessing
he rarely has the original setup CDs. So he must tackle it with the sort
of grass roots approach I'm seeking.
Click to expand...

Possibly. I've had a couple reports in the past, where a Creative
card actually burns a couple pins on a PCI slot. That's not the
likely cause in this case. That kind of thing happens when first
plugging a card in, and there is a problem with the design. Your
system was working for eons, so it's not the likely reason.

*******

Mike's got some good advice.

The equivalent to Linux "lspci" in Windows, is to use a copy of Everest.
Everest will list all the PCI devices it sees, even if Everest
does not have a name string in its internal database for the card.
The program still provides useful info, via the vendor and device
hex values.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/everest_free_edition.html

Download link (4MB file):

( http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/getmirror/everest_free_edition,1.html )

The vendor and device info is available for each card. If you
enabled the onboard sound, and it was on the PCI bus, it should
show up with its own entry. If the Creative card is present, it
should show up. You can have two sound cards enabled at the same
time, and the Windows sound panel will allow you to select one
or the other as an output devices.

When I had a PCI sound card, where one gold contact
was not making a good electrical connection, then an <unknown> entry
showed up, and the ven/dev info was corrupted in one bit position.
It was a bit tricky in that case, to look up the value and make
sense of it. But because I knew my sound chip was CMI8738, I could
compare the known value for it, to the everest value.

Here, I'm showing a sample chip, just to show how to read it.

http://imageshack.us/a/img844/5241/everestpci.gif

You then compare the ven/dev to this list, if you don't know what
the card is. Doing this, is to verify what the card actually is.
In the example, Everest listed 1106-3044 for the device and
1043-81FE for the subsystem. If ten cards are all based on the
same chip (1106-3044), they will each be given a different subsystem
to make them unique. There are too many cards to list all possible
subsystem values, so my instance is not shown. But that is not
important. At least I know I have "VT6306/7/8" as a chip, in
this example

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

1106 VIA Technologies, Inc.
3044 VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller
0010 0001 IEEE 1394 4port DCST 1394-3+1B
1025 005a TravelMate 290
103c 2a20 Pavilion t3030.de Desktop PC
103c 2a3b Media Center PC m7590n
1043 808a A8V/A8N/P4P800 series motherboard
1043 81fe Motherboard
1458 1000 GA-7VT600-1394 Motherboard
1462 207d K8NGM2 series motherboard
1462 217d Aspire L250
1462 590d KT6 Delta-FIS2R (MS-6590)
1462 702d K8T NEO 2 motherboard
1462 971d MS-6917

I don't have a PCI soundcard in the machine, to make a
good example from it, so I just picked my Firewire chip
as an example.

Your onboard sound is supposed to be a CMEDIA 8738 of some sort.
If you cannot read the motherboard CD, then the CMEDIA site
might still have a driver. CMEDIA had to stop shipping the driver
for a while, because Creative bought a company that provided
a licensed technology to CMEDIA, would not renew the license
(to upset a competitor's business), and CMEDIA had to rewrite
old drivers. Took about a year, during which you could not
download a driver. From memory, at least for my two old CMI8738
cards, seeing these numbers would prove the card was fitted in the
slot OK, or otherwise properly detected (as it's soldered to
your motherboard).

13f6 C-Media Electronics Inc
0111 CMI8738/CMI8768 PCI Audio

A rather daunting list.

http://www.cmedia.com.tw/EN/DownloadCenter_Detail2.aspx?Serno=118&pserno=0&dtype=ALL

And the article here, doesn't really help us tell them apart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-Media

So you'd better hope the motherboard CD is readable.

*******

There are applications for scavenging optical discs. And
you could try your CD collection in more than one PC, use
an application like the free Imgburn, make an ISO9660 out
of the scratchy original, burn a new CD, and carry that out
to the shed PC. (You could do the same kind of thing with
Nero.)

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

*******

You could try the Asus download for a7a266-E sound.

http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=A7A266-E&p=1&s=10

Audio

Windows XP Audio Driver V5.12.01.0638
3,48 (MBytes) 2002.07.03 update

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/audio/c-media/cm288b_xp.zip

In there, is "CMAUDIO.INF" file. Using Notepad, there are many
lines in there, indicating which devices the driver supports.
I think "1043" is the subsys for an Asus motherboard. Each
motherboard ("8035") may have a unique entry. The main chip
number remains 13F6 and 0111.

CMI8738.DeviceDesc%=PCI13, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_0111&SUBSYS_80351043

So you've got a driver right there, if you need one. Or, want
to compare it to the INF inside one of the Win2K/WinXP drivers
on the CMedia site.

*******

So while I wandered off in usual fashion, Everest is where
you start, to enumerate the PCI bus and see what is
present. If your card is not making good contact, you
may see an <unknown> entry. And then, you use the pci.ids
file on the web, to figure out what you've got.

A Linux LiveCD and "lspci" will enumerate the bus as well.

It's not easy to explain this stuff over USENET, or
successfully pick a driver for you at a distance. Too
much can go wrong.

Paul
 
Mike Tomlinson said:
Read his post, he said the original driver CD is unusable.

Terry: Creative drivers are a nightmare. You need to find the CTnnnn or
SBnnnn model number on the card, then identify the main sound chip by
reading the markings on it and search for drivers for that combination.

http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=46261

Also, boot a Linux live CD and run 'lspci' at the shell prompt (aka
command line). Look for the line that refers to the sound card and try
searching on that string.

Crazily, even Creative cards with the same CTnnnn model number can have
a different audio chip and thus need a totally different driver. And
that's before you get into the 'value added' (OEM) features which all
need different permutations of the drivers.

The fact that there are several subtle variations of the name
"Soundblaster Live" doesn't help. It might be easier and quicker to
chuck it out and bung in a cheapo card for a few quid off ebay, or use
the onboard.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike, I was beginning to think along exactly those lines too!

Since my reply this morning to Paul I went looking for a download of the
Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 setup CD. I broke a rule not to use
Torrent sites and downloaded an ISO file and burned it. Then booted up to
BIOS, disabled the Onboard PCI Audio (which I'd enabled in an attempt to
get sound THAT alternative way). And then attempted to install it.

So far I've failed. But I won't attempt to describe them until I've
methodically repeated the exercise.
 
Thanks Mike, I was beginning to think along exactly those lines too!

Since my reply this morning to Paul I went looking for a download of the
Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 setup CD. I broke a rule not to use
Torrent sites and downloaded an ISO file and burned it. Then booted up to
BIOS, disabled the Onboard PCI Audio (which I'd enabled in an attempt to
get sound THAT alternative way). And then attempted to install it.

So far I've failed. But I won't attempt to describe them until I've
methodically repeated the exercise.
Click to expand...

There will be *lots* of different setup CDs, so the chances of you
finding the right one for your particular SB card variant are remote
to say the least. Besides that, the drivers on the CD will be
massively out of date, so you'll need to upgrade them by using the
methods Paul and Mike described anyway.

Take the card out and find the CTxxxx or SBxxxx number printed
on the board and download the correct driver from the Creative
site as Mike described, above.

Those of us who do this for a living rarely or never use original
installation CDs, even if we have them.

What make & model is you motherboard? Let us know that and we'll
point you to the drivers for your onboard sound, which will likely
be much easier to find.
 
Rob said:
What make & model is you motherboard? Let us know that and we'll
point you to the drivers for your onboard sound, which will likely
be much easier to find.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about "onboard pci sound", but I have had machines of that
generation, all of which, I think, had AC97 sound.

AC97, like the later HD Audio, is in 2 parts, the analog(ue) bits which
use the Cirrus, Realtek or other drivers and the chipset part which need
chipset drivers.

Have all the motherboard drivers been installed?
 
Bill said:
I'm not sure about "onboard pci sound", but I have had machines of that
generation, all of which, I think, had AC97 sound.

AC97, like the later HD Audio, is in 2 parts, the analog(ue) bits which
use the Cirrus, Realtek or other drivers and the chipset part which need
chipset drivers.

Have all the motherboard drivers been installed?
Click to expand...

That one is PCI. I own a couple, as PCI cards.
It's not AC97.

Paul
 
Terry Pinnell said:
All my attempts to get some audio on the newly installed XP Home
installation have failed so far.

This is the 10 year old PC described most recently in the thread 'PC
almost at standstill'. Now a misleading heading, as it's running at normal
speed since I replaced the ailing Maxtor with a refurbished 40 GB HD (and
removed the other).

The PC was delivering audio from its Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card before
the crashes. But now everything I try ends up with messages implying no
audio hardware device is recognised.

Can I assume that this is exclusively a h/w issue and not due software
installation mistakes by me, such as installing the wrong driver, or the
wrong sequence of driver, etc? If so, presumably I should next try
unseating and replacing the card itself, and any connections to it?
Anything else I can try?

The issue is complicated by the original 2001 set up CD for this 'SB Live'
being scratched. As reported in that earlier long thread, it causes a
reboot when used. That's a first for me - anyone else ever seen that
happen?

Should I be able to get audio EITHER from the sound card, or from the
'Onboard PCI Audio'? I have enabled that setting in the BIOS, but still no
sound.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/Athlon-Onboard-PCI-Audio.jpg

A few months ago the fan packed in on my graphics card. Took it to computer
shop who fitted new card. They could have just put a new fan on it, but
business is business.
Click to expand...
Took tower system home, no sound. Did everything and I have the same card as
you.
Took it back to computer shop.
It would seem that they had enabled something that is something to do with
sound to DVH or something??????? Or something.
The guy disabled it and I got sound.
Sorry I can't do better.
 
Mr said:
Took tower system home, no sound. Did everything and I have the same card as
you.
Took it back to computer shop.
It would seem that they had enabled something that is something to do with
sound to DVH or something??????? Or something.
The guy disabled it and I got sound.
Sorry I can't do better.
Click to expand...

That would be audio over DVI or HDMI. If you look in the
Sound control panel of modern systems, there are multiple
sound output options. You won't get sound out of your
old analog connector, if the digital sound is enabled.
This is something that is easy to check from that
Control Panel stuff.

In the control panel on the right of this picture, the
user gets to select one of three options for "Playback".
That's the one you needed to adjust, and take it off
the digital option and put it to "Speakers".

http://cdn.avsforum.com/b/b5/b55c01cd_vbattach101640.jpeg

Paul
 
Paul said:
That would be audio over DVI or HDMI. If you look in the
Sound control panel of modern systems, there are multiple
sound output options. You won't get sound out of your
old analog connector, if the digital sound is enabled.
This is something that is easy to check from that
Control Panel stuff.

In the control panel on the right of this picture, the
user gets to select one of three options for "Playback".
That's the one you needed to adjust, and take it off
the digital option and put it to "Speakers".

http://cdn.avsforum.com/b/b5/b55c01cd_vbattach101640.jpeg
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's what it is called.
Dunno why they did that whilst fitting a new graphics card.>
 
Yeah, that's what it is called.
Dunno why they did that whilst fitting a new graphics card.>
Click to expand...

Most graphics card now come with one or more HDMI ports and
HDMI includes sound, so graphics cards with that also have a
sound card built-in. Can get very confusing when a PC has
two or three sound cards and you have to assign which sounds
go to which card.
 
Most graphics card now come with one or more HDMI ports and
HDMI includes sound, so graphics cards with that also have a
sound card built-in.
Click to expand...

Not really a sound card, it's just a digital port - the DAC is in the TV
you plug it into, and the ADC was in whatever prepared the content.
 
Rob said:
Most graphics card now come with one or more HDMI ports and
HDMI includes sound, so graphics cards with that also have a
sound card built-in. Can get very confusing when a PC has
two or three sound cards and you have to assign which sounds
go to which card.
Click to expand...

Seemed to have confused the repair shop.
After 19 years with computers I am still useless.
 
Not really a sound card, it's just a digital port - the DAC is in the TV
you plug it into, and the ADC was in whatever prepared the content.
Click to expand...

It's another sound output though, and that's the significant thing.

Cheers - Jaimie
 
Not really a sound card, it's just a digital port - the DAC is in the TV
you plug it into, and the ADC was in whatever prepared the content.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I should have said "effectively have a sound card
built-in as far as Windows is concerned."
 
It's another sound output though, and that's the significant thing.
Click to expand...
Indeed, but it does cause confusion when a strange device appears and
steals your sounds. Conversely I'm still not confident that I can get
Movie Player or VLC to output sound via HDMI, despite having done it a
few times on the lounge PC. Discussing this, it occurs to me that
it might be the reason this (upstairs) PC keeps losing the default
output for Pulse Audio - despite the fact that there's only one output
available when HDMI isn't in use, that output isn't selected as
default, I'm guessing because it "knows" that an HDMI device could be
present at some point because I fitted a card with DVI/HDMI a few weeks
back.
 
Rob said:
Indeed, but it does cause confusion when a strange device appears and
steals your sounds. Conversely I'm still not confident that I can get
Movie Player or VLC to output sound via HDMI, despite having done it a
few times on the lounge PC. Discussing this, it occurs to me that
it might be the reason this (upstairs) PC keeps losing the default
output for Pulse Audio - despite the fact that there's only one output
available when HDMI isn't in use, that output isn't selected as
default, I'm guessing because it "knows" that an HDMI device could be
present at some point because I fitted a card with DVI/HDMI a few weeks
back.
Click to expand...

In Windows, all sound devices are available at the same time.

If a programmer chooses to not write custom code, then the
"default" sound path is the one selected in the Sound control
panel. So if I write a five line program, with output to the
system sound device, the sound comes out of the "default" device.

But there have been Windows player applications written, where you
can select the sound output (one or more copies) from within the
application. So you could send it to the analog connectors, and
to the HDMI digital path, at the same time.

I didn't believe this at first. I thought the "default" path, controlled
by the sound control panel, was the only option. But apparently
that is not true.

Paul
 
Johny B Good said:
All my attempts to get some audio on the newly installed XP Home
installation have failed so far.

This is the 10 year old PC described most recently in the thread 'PC
almost at standstill'. Now a misleading heading, as it's running at normal
speed since I replaced the ailing Maxtor with a refurbished 40 GB HD (and
removed the other).

The PC was delivering audio from its Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card before
the crashes. But now everything I try ends up with messages implying no
audio hardware device is recognised.
Click to expand...

Does it show up (perhaps as unknown device) in device mangler?
Assuming that it's an add in PCI card, have you tried reseating it in
its slot?

A lot of such problems with add in cards, especially when crashes are
involved on a system that's clocked several years of service, comes
down to intermittent / high resistance connector contacts. This also
applies to dimms so it's only common sense to reseat all such
connectors (preferably after cleaning out any dust and dirt from the
PC's innards) when giving the system its long overdue overhaul /
"Spring Clean"[1].
Can I assume that this is exclusively a h/w issue and not due software
installation mistakes by me, such as installing the wrong driver, or the
wrong sequence of driver, etc? If so, presumably I should next try
unseating and replacing the card itself, and any connections to it?
Click to expand...

Well, Duh!!! BTW, in this case, you can't just assume exclusivity of
it being only a hardware issue. By now it could well be both s/w and
hardware.
Anything else I can try?
Click to expand...

Beyond the "Spring Cleaning" I've aleady suggested, I can only add
(just in case the 'bleedin' obvious has escaped you) that you use an
indiarubber erasor to clean the edge connector contacts on the cards
and dimms and that you jack them in and out of their sockets 3 or 4
times before securing them to minimise the risk of landing up with a
bad contact connection ( a lesson I learned nearly two decades ago
whilst assembling a PC using a brand new 486 MoBo and trying 3 brand
new multi I/O VESA cards in turn without success until I tried each
card in turn for a second time whereupon every thing suddenly worked
as per my initial expectation - conclusion: a protective coating of
'grease' applied in manufacture (or possibly a film of 'tarnish') that
needed to be broken down by the rubbing action of repeated
insertions).
The issue is complicated by the original 2001 set up CD for this 'SB Live'
being scratched. As reported in that earlier long thread, it causes a
reboot when used. That's a first for me - anyone else ever seen that
happen?
Click to expand...

The rebooting is more suggestive of a hardware issue, quite likely a
bad contact in the expansion slot due to tarnish/contaminent build up.
Should I be able to get audio EITHER from the sound card, or from the
'Onboard PCI Audio'? I have enabled that setting in the BIOS, but still no
sound.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/Athlon-Onboard-PCI-Audio.jpg
Click to expand...

If you're going to try the on-board sound route, I strongly advise
you to pull the SB card out at this stage of the proceedings to
simplify the situation (it's a currently unknown quantity right now -
normally you can have both enabled, the cmos on-board "auto" setting
should disable the on-board sound when an add-in card is detected).

Although the sound chip might be common across a whole range of makes
and models of MoBo, the implemenation quite often varies between makes
and eventimes models of the same make using the same sound chip. A
search for a MoBo soundchip usually generates a whole shedful of
different driver update installers out of which perhaps just one or
two might be applicable to the particular configuration you have.

The best bet is to identify the MoBo make and model and download the
exact driver for same from the manufacturer's web site (MoBo or the
major OEM that built the PC).

A useful tool for identifying hardware and kickstarting a search for
drivers based on the vendor ID is "UnknownDeviceIdentifier.exe". The
big problem with this sort of search is that you'll land up feeling
like a Princess, i.e. you'll find yourself "Kissing an awful lot of
frogs before you find your Prince".

What's worse, most of the 'frogs' will be horrible warty toads ready
to infect your PC, AV notwithstanding, with a whole slew of adware and
worse. Tracking down driver software this way is, at best, all rather
tedious.

[1] Not many home users, here in the UK, enjoy the benefit of air
conditioning so giving the innards of your PC a "Damn good cleanout"
is best done in Spring to coincide with the (hoped for) rise in
temperature as the year progresses into summer time.
Click to expand...
 
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