My Sound Blaster Live! Value appears to be Dead!

[Spike001]

I recently bought a SB Live! Value card to replace the old Vibra 128 I had sitting in there.

Went through the standard procedures (Remove drivers, swap cards, install etc.), and everything seemed to work fine until the time came for the sound card to actually play some sort of sound, whereupon Windows 98 promptly Blue Screen of Death'ed.

Not surprisingly, this isnt' what I expected. To make matters worse, Win98 bluescreens if I attempt to shutdown, and also on bootup.

I tried Dl'ing the latest versions of Liveware/Drivers but LiveWare 3.0 (or whatever it's called) locks up when it gets to the 'Updating Windows Drivers...'.



SO, ladies and gentlemen.. Why would this happen, and what can be done to fix it? Deus Ex is considerably less interesting (And crashes often enough) with a faulty sound card.

 

[chuckieland]

have you try switch PCI Slot

 

[subhuman]

Switching slots might help, but it sounds like it could be an IRQ conflict. You change this in device manager (winkey+pause), or through your BIOS (when you cold boot, usually press 'delete' or something, it should say).

try it within windows first.

 

[Spike001]

Well, I swapped slots, checked n' changed IRQ's and even went and got a replacement SB Live! card , and it's STILL Blue Screening on me. In fact, it seems to be blue screening due to the card's chipset. Not good.

So, any other ideas? All my pc components are less than 6 months old, aside from the Celeron 566 processor. (Yeah yeah, I was on a budget.)

I would really rather not go back to my Vibra 128 card. It didn't play Mp3's or game sound well unless I actually liked hearing it crackling and out of tune.

 

[adam18]

I am having hte same exact problem with a PIII 800EB and a abit bx-133 motherboard. I built the system a few days ago. I have tried every pci slot, and tried multiple drivers. I get the blue screen at startup and when I run an application that uses the card. Thanks.

 

[aUt0eXebat]

I dont know what to tell you, you said you switced slots, checked IRQ settings, got the same card again.... it must not be compatible w/ your board? it works fine my PIII

 

[subhuman]

Are you using the HighPoint Controller?

 

[Spike001]

My main problem is, the sound card WAS working a week ago (which unfortunately was installed for me when I wasn't around). The trouble is, after a messy crash and HD reformat (Don't ask.), all this stuff is happening.

I have no idea whether motherboards can become 'incompatible' with a SB Live! at random. I'm not plugging anything particularly high-tech into the slots, after all.

I've installed and removed the drivers (Latest downloaded LiveWare! crap, plus the other useless software it forces you to install.). I've installed the drivers I got WITH the card, then tried installing the new downloaded drivers (in safe mode and not in safe mode), etc. etc. It all seems to do the same thing: Freeze when the dl'ed LiveWare is at 'Updating Windows Drivers...'.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what the HighPoint Controller is, either.