New sound card not recognized

[acoustic*carl]

I just purchased a SoundBlaster Live24-bite
I am running XP SP2

I installed it ran the setup and yet
Windows says that I have no audio device.
I have disabled the on board audio, what am i missing?

[Irish Shark]

Did Plug & Play see the card on your first boot after you installed it? If not, the card is probably not seated properly. What kind of computer is it and which PCI slot did you install it in? Any clues in device manager? Did you unintall the old sound card drivers? I know, alot of questions and no answers...need a little more info.

[acoustic*carl]

Did Plug & Play see the card on your first boot after you installed it? If not, the card is probably not seated properly. What kind of computer is it and which PCI slot did you install it in? Any clues in device manager? Did you unintall the old sound card drivers? I know, alot of questions and no answers...need a little more info.


Yes plug & play recognized, however installation instruction say close the wizard and use the installation cd. So, that is what I did. Setup ran with no problems and indicated a complete install. Device Manager indicates SoundBlaster is installed and working properly. I did uninstall old drivers from device manager. Do I need to look anywhere else? Computer is a MicronPC, Pentium III 866MHz.

I bought this sound card because I had the same problem with my on-board audio. It's like Windows won't recognize any audio device.
Do I need to reinstall XP? I sure don't want to have to do that.

Thank you for your reply, I'll take any help I can.

[Irish Shark]

Click on START and "open" control panel. Click on sound and audio devices, do you see any references to your Sound Blaster Live? Make sure that it is not muted. Check to see that the speaker volume is not turned all the way down. Under the Audio tab, make sure that your new card is shown as the devices to use. Make sure you have your speakers pluged into the right jack in back. Are your speakers powered? (power cord attached w/volume knob)Make sure that the volume is turned up. If they are not powered, you will need to crank the volume way up to hear anything. Let me know if any of this helps.

[acoustic*carl]

Irish Shark,
Thank you for your help.
I have done all of the basic troubleshooting. All cable and chords are were the should be. I even checked the speakers (powered) with my cd-player to make sure it wasn't them.

Under Sound & Audio Devices
Hardware Tab shows: SoundBlaster Live! 24-bit
Use audio features is enabled, indicates device is enabled and working properly

However,
Volume Tab indicates: No Audio Devices
Audio Tab only show: Modem #0 Line Playback

Sound card is in PCI slot #3. Does it matter which slot it is in?

[Irish Shark]

You can try to uninstall all software to the old card and new card. Start in safe mode and remove any instances to the sound cards from control panel. Shut down and move your sound card to another PCI slot (if possible). And try fresh. Out of curiosity, you say you had the same problem with the on board sound. Did the sound stop working after a program install or product update?

[acoustic*carl]

I was getting a lot of extranious noise from my speakers. I wanted to see if it was just the on board sound card. I borrowed a sound card (Trident 4 D Wave). I could not find a driver to make it work so I uninstalled the Trident 4DWave and enabled the onboard, but it didn't work. Since then the computer doesn't recognize any audio device.

[scoops18]

I have had a very similar problem. I also bought a Soundblaster Live 24 bit sound card and my computer is not recognizing it. I have a lengthy thread regarding everything that I have tried to get my computer to get sound on another help board. I guess it would be against the rules to refer you to it though. I am running Windows ME on a Pentium III Dell Optiplex GX110. It is an older computer, but should at least have sound of course.

I have reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled the Windows three times just trying to get sound. My onboard sound wasn't working either, that is the same reason that I bought the sound card too. My device manager is also saying that the sound card is working properly, and my onboard sound is disabled, but then under sound/multimedia everything is greyed out, and I have no volume control down near the clock on my desktop, and the computer seems to think that no drivers have been installed for the sound card when I run a dxdiag. It is like a partial installation. Have you tried the ctzaap solution for the Soundblaster Live installation? It didn't work for me, but maybe for you it would.

Just so you know, you are not the only one going through this. I have had some pretty smart people racking their brains on this one and no one can figure out why my computer isn't recognizing my sound card either. We did get so far as to realize that Windows ME is identifying the onboard sound chip wrong, but we don't know why. That is as far as we got though. I know that is probably not helpful to you.

You might have too many drivers installed from all your trials with the one you borrowed and all, I think I have learned by now that this confuses your system, you need to get rid of all the sound drivers and only install the SB Live drivers. That is easier said than done though, no one understands that better than me.

[Irish Shark]

I am sorry that we have been unable to solve your problem, you may take a look at the following, you are not alone.

This might help (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;313022)