Vortex1 Soundcard troubles, need your experience!

[cmaMath13]

Hello,

I am trying to help my friend with his computer. Here is the trouble: The sound/soundcard works fine for the first few time you run applications that use it (ie. after a reboot), but then stops working. After it stops working, all you hear is a slight noise like it want to work, but no real sound comes from speakers.

Setup:
Pentium3 500
Intel BX chipset mobo (no name brand)
96MB SDRAM (PC100)
Nvidia TNT Video card
Vortex1 Chipset soundcard with the latest drivers avaliable
Win98


There are many programs, downloads, and even a few AOL upgrades, etc on the hard drive. The hard drive has never been reformatted (about 1.5 years). I personally think the soundcard is ok, but the hard drive could be reformatted, but I am not an expert.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Is the soundcard bad OR do you think a reformat could do the job?

 

[spdfreak]

Try running dxdiag and see what it says under the sound tabs. Just go to start>run>type in dxdiag, and see what it says. I would have to say that any windows system that has not been formatted in that long is suspect. You can also try reinstalling DX8 and see if that helps. My vortex1 was kind of buggy in any of the newer games I had, so I just got a newer card. Also, you can try and see if it will play a cd all the way through, or if it stops in all applications or just some.

 

[cmaMath13]

Yeah, I am really thinking that the computer could use a "reformatting". All applications are older and the hardware seems legit. Like I said in earlier post, there is a lot of junk on the hhd, so I think we will reformat. I guess I want to try everything, before I decide it is a hardware issue.

Thanks.