XP and SB Live really dont like each other!

[troubleshooter867]

I have a very frustrating problem. I'll break it down simple so i can hopefully get some help.

- installed xp on a formatted hdd
- crashed the moment windows fully booted
- disabled mobo audio
- reset and same thing happened
- went into safe mode. everything ok
- no hardware conflicts
- updated VIA and Nvidia drivers
- reset. same thing.
- moved card from pci slot 2 to slot 5. no good.
- i disable the : Creative SB Live! series(WDM)
Creative SB Live! Gameport
VIA AC'97 Audio Controller (WDM)
- restart. everything ok
- lost sb drivers cd
- searched the net for drivers
- found something @ http://alive.singnet.com.sg/download/ (i d/l the top thing.)
- ran it. error: sb live card not detected. i figure because i disabled it in the device manager
- tried installing it in safe mode. no good. cant find hardware.
- this was 6 hours ago and i'm still trying

as of now its like this

- if Creative SB Live! series(WDM) is enabled. normal boot no good. safe mode ok
- if not. normal and safe mode both ok
- sound card: soundblaster live 5.1 gamer

Do u think installing the drivers will fix the problem, even though xp already seems recognize it. If not what else do u think it could be?


i'd really appreciate any help

thanks

 

[GAZZA]

Very strange as I can verify that this card works fine in XP Pro with the "SBLive51XPDrvUpdate.exe" driver .

It also should work fine with the default drivers that XP uses .

The fact you also have onboard audio is what I suspect is causing an issue with your SBLive as Creative's cards tend to have more than their fair share of problems .

Have you tried disabling the onboard sound in the bios and then trying your live with these drivers on this site SbLive 5.1

 

[Zim Hosein]

troubleshooter867, I did the same as GAZZA did a while back and have to say that I don't have any issues w/ my Live card and XP, try GAZZA's method and post your results. One note for you, before I even had my Live card in my XP system on a fresh install, I disabled my onboard sound. This might be an example of why on a fresh install it's best to do so w/ just one stick of RAM and your video card installed before proceding; just an afterthought that has helped me in the past. Since you aren't too far along w/ your install, maybe you should try it. Hope this helps

 

[troubleshooter867]

thanks for the feedback

Disabling the onboard audio was one of teh first things i did. didnt work. Something i didnt mention was that i had trouble installing xp on a formatted hdd, so i installed WinME first then upgraded. I'd like to try your idea Zim but i dont know how to install windows xp off a formatted hdd. If u could tell me how to, I'd like to try.

i really dont see why the XP drivers wouldnt work. do u think its a hardware or software conflict?

Interesting thing happened. I reinstalled XP (on top of ME again) and the onboard sound drivers were there in the device manager. I know i disabled the onboard sound in the bios and it still is. Strange.

...waiting on more help...

 

[dude]

See if there's a jumper to disable onboard sound. Also remember to disable the joystick port (or midi port).

You can install XP fresh from the cd by setting the CD as first boot device in the bios. When it prompts you, hit the any key and it will boot off the cd.

 

[spanky]

i do not seem to have any issues with win xp & my sb live (knock on wood). when install win xp... make sure u pull out all unneccesary hardware. i remember back in the day i was installing win98 with all cards (sc, nic, modem, scsi, etc) on the mobo, and that really fudged up my install. so now, i make a habit to pull out all peripherals and install them one by one. sure it takes a little more time, but it's better than having to reinstall the OS again

 

[troubleshooter867]

i just reinstalled windows xp for the 3rd time, but this time i took out the sblive card and made sure the onboard legacy sound was disabled. But when i checked the device manager in the sound controllers, i see 3 drivers with "legacy" in the name. HMMM. what am i doing wrong. On the bright side xp is going smoothly, although without any sound. I'm gonna try to install the sblive card and hopefully everything will be ok.

 

[spanky]

so u disabled the audio in the bios, yet xp is still detecting audio devices? btw, when u say reinstalled, do u mean formatted too?

 

[troubleshooter867]

i reformatted. took out the soundcard, nic, and left one stick of ram, video card and cpu. Success. then i installed sblive card and booted xp. it worked fine, but then xp found the new hardware and installed drivers for them and it crashed immediately. now i went into safe mode disabled everything under sound, video and game controllers. i'm gonna try to reinstall the sblive card without any crashing. i'm getting really frustrated here.

 

[wjsulliv]

There a couple of things that come to mind...

1) Disable onboard sound in every way possible, jumpers, bios, etc.
2) When you reinstall, always formate the drive first, so that you get a clean install and not a refreshed install.
3) Some additional system specs would be helpful? Specifically what kind of motherboard and video you have.
4) Try a fresh install with the onboard sound diabled and only your video card and drives installed (bare bones), no sound, no modem, no nic, just floppy, cd-rom, hard drive, and video...

Note that the via 686B southbridge and the Sound Blaster Live series (and the Sound Blaster 512 also) have compatability issues during install. Those issues mainly pertain to older versions of windows where you load motherboard drives upon completion of the OS install, but they still exist in Win XP. To avoid these problems, run a clean bare bones install (no onboard sound and without the sound blaster). Then, when you get the barebones completed properly, Add everything else but the sound card. After that is done ok, run windows Update and get all necessary critical updates and driver updates. Then add your sound blaster live card into the system.

 

[troubleshooter867]

thanks a lot for your info.

i just did a bare bones installation. but i did run into a problem. when i tried to install xp on the formatted hdd, it seems to stop responding or just take exceedingly long. i'm talking 2 hours. is that normal? so i gave up and installed WinME and upgraded to XP.

1. i know i disabled in bios dont think i can disable through jumpers
2. i have installed on a formatted hdd, but as u know i have to take a detour. As for my attempted installation of XP it does not work if i try to boot from the cd. nothing happens. what i do is boot from a boot disk and go to execute e:/i386/winnt.exe and that brings me to the windows setup screen, but as explained above it seems to stop working. the screen simply says "setup is copying files to hard disk"
and its like that forever.
3. Mobo: some garbage that i bought to use while my other one is being repaired. socket A, VIA Apollo KT133a chipset VT8363a with super I/O bridge vt82c686c
video: asus geforce 2 GTS
cpu: duron 700
ram: 128 sdram
4. Last install was a barebones install

 

[spanky]

it might take forever at the "copying files" screen if u have a slow cd-rom.
have u tried to install the vai 4in1's? link

Do not update 4-1 drivers unless you are experiencing problems.
Microsoft Windows XP has native XP support and 4-1 drivers usually are not needed.

so since u r experiencing problems... maybe it'll help.

 

[troubleshooter867]

i have installed the 4in1 drivers already. i have 52x cd rom so i dont think its that. but something i did notice was that before setup began installing files, it warned me that i did not activate smartdrive. it greatly improve the performance of the setup, but it wasnt necessary. does anyone know how to use smartdrive in dos.

 

[spanky]

boot up using either a cdrom, or the boot disc. make sure u enable cdrom support. then pop in ur win98 cd. then....

x:\win98\smrtdrv
cd \

take the win98 cd out... pop in the xp cd... run setup.

loading smartdrive does help greatly in copying files

 

[troubleshooter867]

i really appreciate the help.

does winme have smartdrive also?

do u think installing xp from a formatted hd will help? compared to upgrading from ME.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

no problem for mine:
winxp pro, 1st gen sb live value, 686B.
didn't install any sb live driver/update/liveware, via 4in1.

 

[troubleshooter867]

successfully updated drivers, but still no good. i was sure that when i update the drivers it would cool. i really need help with this.
i'm attaching a screen shot of my device manager so u can see what i'm talking about.



i disabled the creative driver cause the moment i enable it crashes. i also disabled all of the other drivers so there couldnt be a conflict. any suggestions.
screenshot of device manager

 

[spanky]

hmm... here is what my device manager looks like. seems like we got some different devices... are u sure u got the right drivers for ur card? if so, maybe it'll be easier if use a different soundcard.

 

[troubleshooter867]

mine looks exactly the same now except beside SBlive! it has "series" after it.

which driver update should i get for the soundcard?

in the properties it says i have driver version 3509.2.0.0

u seem to have the exact same setup but u have no problems. so does that mean it might be something else?

this is as far as i can go without it crashing.

 

[spanky]

i have the same driver revision u have. hmmm....

 

[troubleshooter867]

do u need more info?

i dont know if this matters but when i click on that stupid eax thingy when windows boots i can hear a beep coming from my case.

have u guys run out of ideas.

 

[GAZZA]

But when i checked the device manager in the sound controllers, i see 3 drivers with "legacy" in the name.

windows XP installs these whether or not you have a sound card installed or not , as I have verified this with a pc I just setup.

smartdrv.exe should automatically be installed if you have your setup boot from cdrom device , provided it is a bootable cd version of XP .


When you click on that device that has the red X what does it say that is the cause of the problem ?

Have you tried those drivers I mentioned in my first post yet with the new install ?

 

[wjsulliv]

If your systems doesn't support booting from CD-Rom make sure you download a XP boot disk set from Micrsofts website.

Trying to install after using a standard Win98/Me boot disk is not recommended.

The XP boot disk, is actually a 6 disk set, that will look for your XP disk in the CD-Rom after it has loaded the computer up to run an install.

That could be the cause of the excedingly long loading, and other problems with your XP install, XP does not support dos installs like all the old OS did. Or atleast Microsoft claims it doesn't and recommends against it.

Use the XP disks if at all possible and do a clean install.

 

[zogg]

Why don't you get an audigy?
I think you still need to go to creatives site and update all the drivers/players, etc.
I have seen some oems out there for low bucks

 

[spanky]

Originally posted by: wjsulliv
If your systems doesn't support booting from CD-Rom make sure you download a XP boot disk set from Micrsofts website.

Trying to install after using a standard Win98/Me boot disk is not recommended.

The XP boot disk, is actually a 6 disk set, that will look for your XP disk in the CD-Rom after it has loaded the computer up to run an install.

That could be the cause of the excedingly long loading, and other problems with your XP install, XP does not support dos installs like all the old OS did. Or atleast Microsoft claims it doesn't and recommends against it.

Use the XP disks if at all possible and do a clean install.

WHOA! dude... i didn't know that. thanx for the info