Chaintech 7SID owners - help with AC97 onboard Audio

[duuuma]

i have too many problems with onboard sound lately.....

For my chaintech 7SID:
-win2k doesn't have the drivers for it
-the CD that chaintech packaged doesn't seem to have it (I tried running the sisAudio folder that said 7012, but no luck)
-tried letting auto-detect search through the CD as well, but go nothing


how can I get this thing to work?

chaintech 7SID (Sis735)
Duron 950
Sis AC97 onboard audio
gainward GF2 MX200 32mb
Maxtor D740x 40gig
Enlight 300w PSU
crucial PC2100 128mb
sony 40x

 

[duuuma]

bump

 

[clumsum]

duuuma,

Have you enabled the audio in bios ........... ?

If not then:
Enter bios > Integrated Peripherals > SiS OnChip PCI Device > Enter:
Enable SiS - 7012/7018 AC97 AUDIO

If your Audio is already Enabled then you may have to browse the SiS CD and point your Install Wizard directlly to the Win2K file!

 

[duuuma]

yeah it's enabled...what's weird is even if I point windows at the folder sisAudio and then the 7012 folder, it'll begin installation, but right when it hits the 10% mark for installation, an error box pops up with a large number (kind of like -547678321). then it tells me there's an error and it stops installation.

clumsum -- I have the 9/2001 bios and i read on an old version of the chaintech Taiwan website that version 10/2001 has a fix for audio setup....what bios version do you run?

 

[clumsum]

I have the newer bios 2/7/2002 ................. but my sound was working ok with the older bios!

Some time the audio can be tricky ........ as loading drivers in general can be.
Try NOT pointing your os directly to the file ............. lately I've been doing that and it seems to work better!
What I mean is, ....... let the os do a broader search by itself ....... and see what happens, seems like trying to force feed 'em just doesn't work well all the time.
Just select the cd when checking the where to look box.

Another posibility, that usually works ok, is go to Microsoft UPDates and let the MS site check your system and you will get an SiS recommended driver way down at the bottom of the site page ............. I have done this before and it worked OK.

 

[duuuma]

I think I'll try the bios flash then the MS website for updated drivers when i get a network card for it


btw, what are you running on your 7SID? the board seems pretty stable so far, i've only had it running for about a day. I was running Win2k with Fail-Safe default in bios and i was getting a bad mouse lag when cpu usage was high. Then, I loaded the Optimum default Bios settings and upgraded to WinXP and now it runs quite smoothly, though I feel like it could be faster. Did you leave your fsb at the default 100?

7SID 100fsb, 133clock
Duron 950 w/ volcano 2
crucial pc2100 128mb
geforce2 mx200 32mb
maxtor d740x 40gig
winxp

 

[clumsum]

I am currently running:

Athlon 1.4G ..... so I'm set at 133/133. w/ Thermoengine HSF.
Win2K - Installed as "Standard Computer" no sleep modes .... or wake when you fart ..... or that other crap.
WD ATA-100 7200rpm - 20G hdd
Radeon LE (OEM) 32MB DDR - I was using a Matrox G-450 and that worked good too.
Pioneer 106S - Slot load DVD-ROM
Teak W516EB CD-RW
Panasonic fdd
ECS CNR Modem
Fong Kai 611L uATX case - 300W Enhance psu

I'm not at home, .... or I would uninstall my audio and re-install the drivers so I could remember the details better ........... ?

 

[duuuma]

slumsum, thanks for all the help...here's the update:


well the bios update 2/7/2002 did the trick and now windows is finally able to detect the SIS 7012 chipset and install the drivers properly...

I'm still running XP on it and though it went for 24 hours with no hiccup, that was before the bios update....I even played jedi outcast and used adobe photoshop then too, so i'm going to try playing Jedi, using Adobe, and doing some programming....hopefully nothing bad will happen.

I bought an ethernet card for it but it doesn't seem to work, but I'll just try another...

mouse tends to lag a tiny bit again, but not as badly as before....maybe I'll reformat again...

anyway, thanks again.

 

[clumsum]

Glad it's working for you ........... I like the imbedded bios update program that chainteck uses with this board.
I think it's a good board, but like I said earlier ...... it can be picky with memory and PSU.

Are you using a USB mouse? ............. If so you may have better luck with an optical, serial mouse.
I don't seem to have the time for very much gamming .......... I've never noticed any lag with my mouse though.

Be nice to have some feed-back from other CT-7SID user's .................. !!!

 

[SaiNRuB]

Oh yes the 7sid. I used to have one, its a fantastic board, I used winxp though so I cant be much help on the driver problem since the XP drivers are widely available on chaintechs website and Sis website

 

[duuuma]

yeah where are all the 7SID owners? i know there has to be more than just us 3.....anyone else have any good/bad experiences with this board?


anyway, Windows XP seems to run fine and stable. I haven't gotten any of the updates for it yet though, so hopefully after i do, the lags will stop. I am having a problem installing a Netgear NIC though, but i doubt it'll be a problem if i just swap it out.