Trying to Install New Sound Card... ARRRRGGGGHHH!

[Jim Macklin]

Also, try the Add Hardware wizard in the Control Panel.



--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.
some support
http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm



|I just read somewhere or other that having a firewall
running can
| interfere with properly downloading drivers.. does this
sound like a
| legit possibility to anybody?
|

 

[Mikey]

Thanks for reading this: I hope someone can help. As if it won't be
clear from the following information, I am a n00b who knows nothing.

I have an eMachines C3060 running Windows XP. I've decided that I need
a new sound card. My girlfriend swiped a Cicero 6-channel PCI card with
a Cmedia 8738 chipset from her lab (the english manual that came with
it states it's a cmi8738-LX, the french manual claims it's a ps-m01a...
already I'm confused, and already you all know that I'm not that bright
when it comes to computers).

So, I stick the thing in a PCI slot after disabling AC97 in BIOS to
take care of the on-board soundcard that came with my system (I read to
do that somewhere). I put the driver CD in one of my CD-ROM drives like
a good boy and run the setup.exe like the manual says. Except,
according to the manual, I should get an option to check "Install
Device Driver", and I get no such thing: instead I get a list of the
files on the disk. I've tried clicking on just about every file and
folder there, but nothing seems to do much.

I visited Cmedia's website and downloaded the latest XP driver for the
card, and when I open that file I DO get a window that allows me to
click an "Install" button. Another window opens up and everything looks
fine. "Starting Installation Process", it says. Cool. Then "Copy
Necessary Files". Looks good. Then it says "Waiting For Audio Driver To
Be Ready". And that's it. it seems to wait and wait and wait and wait.
Forever. If I click "Exit" because it's an hour later and even I know
it shouldn't take this long, it tells me the drivers are ready and to
re-start the computer. So, I do, but I still get no sound, and my
computer doesn't seem to know I have a soundcard in there.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to try to cover everything. Any
help? I would be greatly appreciative...

Swiping a sound card from a lab is illegal.

 

[beyonddc.storage]

I don't think disabling the on-board sound does any help in your
scenario, because I already tried that. Same result happened
afterward.

I just think that the AC '97 doesn't play well or it just dislike to
have a CMI8738.

Maybe a good idea is to try a different sound card.
I doubt your sound card is broken / not working, because your results
look like exactly what I'm facing right now, and I know by fact that my
sound card was working before. It was on another machine.

 

[Baphomet]

Well, I know Plug and Play isn't turned off, 'cause that's how I was
able to connect my old monitor to my new computer, here (not that I
know how to actually check whether it's on or off).

I tried Add Hardware, which didn't work. Strangely (at least it seemed
strange to me), if I choose the option in the Wizard to take the driver
off the CD that I have that supposedly has the driver on it (the CD
says "sound card driver" right on it), I am told by the Wizard that the
CD doesn't have a driver on it. And trying to install it without the CD
doesn't work: among other things, when given a list of manufacturers,
neither Cicero nor Pine nor Cmedia is included in the list to choose
from.

The info given at that "theinquirer.net" site wasn't really relevant,
but I do thank you for the suggestion.

I am aware that stealing is illegal. Using grant money for things for
which it wasn't intended is also unethical, but that goes on all the
time in labs as well. Big deal. The sound card had been pulled out of a
computer (where it was previously working) and no one was going to be
using it, so either I could give it a try or it could sit on a shelf.
After all the tax dollars of mine that have been poured into useless
programs that I don't give a shit about, getting some of it back in the
form of a possibly useful piece of abandoned hardware that was
purchased with my tax dollars in the first place didn't seem like a
horrific breach of moral etiquette.

If the firewall is not the issue, then I'm not going to bother turning
it off and trying again. I shall resign myself to the fact that this is
a dud card: although if it gets returned to the lab and someone else is
able to get it going again at some later date, i will be pissed.

Thank you everyone for your feedback.

 

[beyonddc]

I'm still struggling on my side. I bought a turtle beach riviera
soundcard to give a 2nd shot, and same thing happened.

::sign::

I think I'm getting closer though, atleast I know it is the gameport
that is failed to install. That is also the same case with the cmedia
CMI8738 chipset.

Can you verify that for me? Baphomet Thanks...

 

[Baphomet]

How do you know that the problem is with the gameport?

 

[beyonddc]

When the installation froze, go to control panel -> system -> device
manager, and you'll see that the soundcard did detected successfully,
but the gameport has an exclaimation mark next to it.

We're actually not the only people who have this problem. There's a
lot more people w/ this problem with the cmedia chipset we had. I got
an unconfirmed rumor saying that there's always an incompatiability
between nforce motherboard with the cmedia chipset that we had on our
soundcard.

 

[Baphomet]

When the installation froze, go to control panel -> system -> device
manager, and you'll see that the soundcard did detected successfully,
but the gameport has an exclaimation mark next to it.

We're actually not the only people who have this problem. There's a
lot more people w/ this problem with the cmedia chipset we had. I got
an unconfirmed rumor saying that there's always an incompatiability
between nforce motherboard with the cmedia chipset that we had on our
soundcard.

Sounds like your problem is a little different than mine (although the
result is the same - a sound card that doesn't work). An
incompatibility between cmedia cards and nForce boards wasn't something
I had heard of before, but it would explain why nothing seems to work.
Let me know if a different card works...