Soundcard (SoundMax) Died and won't come back?

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:01 pm

Ok so I had to make 4 changes over the weekend and finally got that computer up and running, happily.

1. I changed out that power bar, it was faulty and was leading me down the path of questioning if the power supply was bad. I did notice something about the power supply but I'll put that in it's own post.

2. I bought a new video card, a Radeon 5770 and that did the trick as far as solving video issues. I must say it was a real game to set it up though, when I didn't use the absolute latest drivers things crashed and even bluescreen of death and reboot on me in Windows 7 64 bit!

3. I bought a sound card, a Auzenteck X-Raider 7.1. Seems to work well, main comment is you need to be careful to set a reasonable volume level on the sound mixer so that you don't get sound distortion. I have to say it's disappointing that because of the sound problem I pretty much HAD to install an operating system and start over.

4. Operating System install. I had to get the software for my old sound card uninstalled in order for the new sound card to be recognized on startup. Due to the fact that the old sound card was not detected in windows the uninstall of "SoundMAX" just wouldn't work. Maybe I could have looked into clobbering files and deleting registry entries but that would have been questionable for me to try. I installed Windows 7 64 bit just to avoid having a super patched operating system which is what Windows XP is now. I was just finding too many funny issues with USB and printer drivers so wanted to see if making things more current would help.

Thanks for all your help everyone. I turns out that there were hardware problems and I ended up shelling out $300 to keep this computer going but I think it's worth it. The new CPUs just aren't significantly faster at most tasks so keeping this one going will serve me well for another 2 years or so.

Ken · Post by **Ken** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:20 pm

After all that you have been through, I am reluctant to say that …personally, I would give it another enema and do a clean install, first loading the ASUS chipset and other drivers, then updating the OS, etc...
Of course, that's just me and how I would do, just to keep me from kicking myself in the rear in the future... Glad to hear that you have it up and running!

A question, which OS are you using, 7 or XP? (Item #2, you reference Win 7, and item #4 XP... "I installed Windows 7 64 bit just to avoid having a super patched operating system which is what Windows XP is now.")

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 3:10 pm

Ken wrote:After all that you have been through, I am reluctant to say that …personally, I would give it another enema and do a clean install, first loading the ASUS chipset and other drivers, then updating the OS, etc...
Of course, that's just me and how I would do, just to keep me from kicking myself in the rear in the future... Glad to hear that you have it up and running!

A question, which OS are you using, 7 or XP? (Item #2, you reference Win 7, and item #4 XP... "I installed Windows 7 64 bit just to avoid having a super patched operating system which is what Windows XP is now.")

I originally put my image of Win XP back on just to prove that I could get this sound card working...and like a good scientist I wanted to only change 1 thing at a time and really prove that the last action is what fixed something. I hate changing 3 things at a time and then wondering "which one of those 3 things fixed it". After failing miserably with XPt (as I said must gracefully uninstall the old sound software which I couldn't do and eventually got into a spot where XP would not boot!).....I then proceeded to start from scratch on a Win 7 64-bit install as you recommend.

As far as the Intel chipset drivers and such I'm still on whatever Win 7 found for me. I know if I run the installer from ASUS the dates are older than the one from Windows 7 so I definitely would have to do the "Have Disk" method and force the ASUS chipset drivers on there. At this point I'm totally unsure what would behave differently under different versions of these drivers.

The only thing I have yet to push on this machine in Win 7 64-bit is my Hauppage WinTV card. I got the impression that if I turn on that memory setting in the BIOS to see the full 4 Gb of RAM that the tv tuner software may not work.

Ken · Post by **Ken** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:08 pm

hhmmm, I have never been one to use windows chipset drivers... They should be from Intel or mobo manu... Maybe someone else will say different, however that most probably contributed to your former usb problems...

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:03 pm

I'm happy if windows installs chip-set drivers on its own, but I always update them with the latest and greatest from the motherboard manufacturers web site. I try to do that with every piece of hardware. I can see the drivers on the CD that came with said device being older than the default windows ones, but I would think the ones on the manufacturers web site should be as new or newer. Unless the device is really old that is.

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:03 pm

Ken wrote:hhmmm, I have never been one to use windows chipset drivers... They should be from Intel or mobo manu... Maybe someone else will say different, however that most probably contributed to your former usb problems...

Come to think of it for USB drivers I was using whatever the computer store installed originally and then when I re-imaged with Windows XP a few months ago I can't remember what I did for USB but I would assume I just let windows do it's thing (I recall on my Pentium 4 that ASUS said to use the USB drivers on XP SP1).

I'm very torn on this issue as I feel that as time has gone on I use USB a lot more on this machine with more "sophisticated" devices. HP printer connected by USB, larger storage USB flash drives, infrared remote sensors, GPS devices, iPods.....it all ramped up over the years. Anyway, time to monitor things in Windows 7 to see if I need to play with drivers. If things don't go well I'll play with drivers a little but am very willing to buy a $40 USB card for that computer and get off the ASUS USB path. Only thing is I used up both of the available PCI slots on that machine so it'd need to be a card with a super small slot into the motherboard (ha I don't even know what the heck it's called....looks like a super mini PCI slot).

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:25 pm

PCIe slots come in different lengths/bandwidth, x1, x4, x8 and x16. A lot of motherboards have a little shorty PCIe x1 slot for wireless cards and sound cards. If thats what your looking at it shouldn't be a problem finding a USB 2 card to fit it. The only time I ever had problems with USB drivers was on XP with USB 2, and it only ever seemed to be a problem on this one motherboard I had. They were on the CD that came with it so I used those. I think hitting windows update would fix it too. That was a while ago now and I don't have that motherboard anymore. They say your memory is the first thing to go as you get older and i can't remember what the second thing is.

Ken · Post by **Ken** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:39 pm

As you wish, however think about USB3...

I have always felt with Intel, you can use Intel or the mobo manufacturers’ chipset drivers; with AMD, you must use mobo manufacturers’... Good luck using windows chipset drivers to correctly control onboard chips... The problem with that is the unlimited customization that happens at that level... To each his own, I guess...

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 11:17 am

Ken wrote:As you wish, however think about USB3...

I have always felt with Intel, you can use Intel or the mobo manufacturers’ chipset drivers; with AMD, you must use mobo manufacturers’... Good luck using windows chipset drivers to correctly control onboard chips... The problem with that is the unlimited customization that happens at that level... To each his own, I guess...

I don't even know what the chipsets do on the motherboard. Northbridge and all that noise....