K7S5A: no sound in game(s?)

[IanWorthington]

Hi --

I've got a K7S5A which seems to be working fine running Win98SE (no online updates), with the drivers supplied on the ECS CDROM (ie no updates there either).

Onboard sound works fine, (though shame about the level) in Win98, but when I enter a game (EA's Harry Potter -- no others around to test with, honest!) I loose the sound both *in* the game and in Win98 after exiting until I reboot.

I've found a few other people reporting the same symptoms, one who claims to have put in all the updates, but without any solution.

Anyone here come across this problem? (Or even better, the solution!)

Ian
...

 

[Buz2b]

I had similar problems with the sound before in one such system I built for a family member. Other than loading the updated sound drivers from ECS, the only thing I can suggest is to buy a seperate "generic" sound card and use it instead. You can get one for around $10 and that would clear up the trouble. BTW, are you using an AMR modem by chance?

 

[IanWorthington]

Unfotunatly I'd have to buy about 30 generic sound cards, so I'd rather find a cheaper option!

I've just found a message (http://forum.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=27&t=003075) suggesting that a conflict with the video card might cause what I'm seeing, and that upgrading the audio driver does NOT fix the problem...

I'm looking at it now...

Ian
...

 

[Buz2b]

<< Unfotunatly I'd have to buy about 30 generic sound cards, so I'd rather find a cheaper option! >>

I can understand wanting to save a few bucks but if $10 a system kills your bottom line then you need to charge a bit more. 😉


<< and that upgrading the audio driver does NOT fix the problem >>

Remember though, YMMV. Just because someone says they tried/did something doesn't mean they did it right or even did it well. While I agree it is valuable to have others share their knowledge and information, it's worth a few minutes time to try this one yourself.
If it is an IRQ conflict then it would show up elsewhere also. Good Luck!

 

[IanWorthington]

Unfortunately, $10 generics are a bit more difficult to find in Spain. And if I was going to invest money in a sound card I know I'd end up getting a better one than a generic -> even more money!

Anyway, it turns out all that is moot...

In my case my mileage was, well, exactly the same. Upgrading the audio driver made not a scrap of difference to me either. I confimed the problem was video-related but turning down the h/w acceleration "performance" setting: anything higher than basic would kill the audio.

Luckily but the Visiontek site has a good collection of historical drivers, so I armed myself with them all, expecting to have to go backwards until I found one that worked. But this site *also* has a later version of the Nvidia drivers than the Nvidia site, so I tried that first and bingo: One happy camper!

Bottom line: nvidia rel 27.50 works with the k7s5a; 23.11 does *not*.

Ian
...

ps. I am *always* torn between upgrading to the latest level of all drivers and adopting the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. I usually go for the former, but having been burnt too many times went more conservative this time. Oh, well...

pps. Norton Ghost is a godsend! Never used it before, but tried it out with this project and I love it! Mess your system up with testing, then just roll it back and reapply the stuff that fixed it: sweet!

Ian
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