Sound card hell....PLEASE help

[MG.]

Hello to all. First, to save time, I;me not a novice and I think I have a
fair idea of how to get things going.
The problem:

I just recently upgraded my Dell D4500 with a new sound card (Turtle Beach
Santa Cruz) and a new video card (ATI Radeon 9200). I'm running Win XP Home
SP1 on a P4 1.80GHz w/ 768MB of RAM and a CD-ROM and CDRW. I installed the
sound card first, all worked fine. I tested it, played regular audio CD's ,
MP 3's avi files, etc.
All worked well.
The sound problem started when I installed the ATI video card believe it or
not and made the mistake of using the "Express Install" mode. (I was tired,
it was late...)
ATI installed a "Multimedia Center" that hijacked all of my file extensions
from Media Player 9 and took it to it's own "File Player". Each time I
tried to play a file of any kind using Media Player I got this message:

"Windows Media Player cannot play the file because there is a problem
with your sound device. There may not be a sound device installed on your
computer, it may be in use by another program, or it may not be functioning
properly."

I then uninstalled ATI's Multimedia Center, but no help there...same
problem. I have now installed, re-installed, uninstalled everything in the
PC. Here's the specifics:
After I reinstall the Sound Card (via Device Manager) and then the drivers,
EVERYTHING works fine. As soon as I reboot, the problem returns.
If I install ATI's crap "Multimedia Center", everything works with it, but
not with Media Player. I have stuck the file associations to Media Player
everywhere, but obviously it's not an association problem, but a sound card
software one...at least I think so.
Any help will be greatly appreciated, I am going NUTS! I even tried system
restore and started from scratch but the problem returns on reboot.
Sorry to be so wordy, just though the more info I give, the better the
chances of getting HELP.
Thanks in advance and best regards,
Morey "silent man" G.

Dell D4500 P4 1.8GHz
768MB RAM Maxtor 80gb HDD
Lite-On LTN486S SONY CD-RW CRX160E
RADEON 9200 Conexant HSF V92 56k
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz

Win XP Home SP1

 

[Randy]

New Version of MMC 8.9. Try this first:

http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/...mm&prod=aiwWINXPdriver&submit.x=16&submit.y=7

 

[MG.]

Randy,
Thanks so much for fast comeback. Are you suggesting that I reinstall MMC
and then upgrader to MMC 8.9? Right now, I'm right where I was before, no
MMC, no functioning Media Player after reboot. If I reinstall teh
soundcard, everything works until I shut down.

VERY weird!

Well, I'll give it a try
MG

 

[MG.]

Well, I tried the whole routine. No luck. Media Player will NOT play any of
the files it used to. All I have is the ATI file player, and it's not
nearly as nice as Media Player 9.
Now I'm stumped again!

Thanks anyway,
Morey

 

[Kelly]

Do some reading here and good luck: http://tinyurl.com/2uhp8

 

[pjp]

I always pick the items from MMC I want, in my case it's only the TV-In, all
else is better served with other software.

I will agree ATI's installs leave something to be desired.

 

[MG.]

Kelly,
Thanks for the guide, although I pretty much had exhausted all the options
there. The last thing I'm trying (before reverting to the on-board Audio
.....which I disable in BIOS, yes) is to rearrange the cards according to
factory specs. Although the PC came from the factory with the 2 PCI cards
installed, modem and network, they were NOT installed in the recommended
slots. I just finished testing the onboard card, it worked, disabled it,
installed the Santa Cruz and I'm about to reboot and see if Media Player 9
will work.
I will post back and let you know what happens. If I had any hair left, I'd
be yanking it about now!

pjp:
I really hate it when some company determines that you should use their
software to function with THEIR hardware. I guess they all took lessons
from Gates and Microsoft, eh?
WHY DID I USE "EXPRESS INSTALL"??!! After all these years of playing
with PC's you think I would not have let that one slip by! That's what I
get for not waiting until the morning to install the stuff!!
Thanks everyone,
I'll be back
Morey