Asus P5a and sound card problems

[Shard92]

Has anyone had problems with an Asus P5a motherboard and it's built in sound. As a general rule we don't recommend on-board sound anyway but I've had good luck with ess sound and Asus is a good board, but.... The P5a has on-board ess solo soundbut it will not work for nothing. The drivers will install and everything, with no conflicts but it will not make sound. I tried disabling the on-board sound and put in an ess solo Pci card and it does the same thing. Detects the card installs drivers and then doesn't make a sound. By the way this is a win98 ( first edition I believe ) machine. I have gotten an ISA sound card to work but no PCI we have in stock will work correctly on the board! Anyone able to shed any light on this one? Why do I keep getting these fussy machines?

GLSmith

[shawnMt]

lol - I've been asking myself that question about fussy machines for some time now.

I have only delt with one P5A with sound and it had a problem like that. The fix was something silly (been awhile back so it's hard to remember exactly.) I think I went into multimedia properties and checked "use only preferred device" or something like that. You can also try to use a different PCI sound card - non ess.

When you go into sound properties and try to play a wav, is the play button greyed out, does it press then hang, or does it press then release- like it's playing the file?

Sorry I can't be of more help on this one...

[This message has been edited by shawnMt (edited May 02, 2000).]

[Larommi]

I use these boards all the time. They are great K6 budget system boards. Not to integrated and with enough snort to run about anything. Here is the thing I have found with the sound.
1. If you run the install program on the disk and reboot like prompted, it will detect the new hardware and still prompt you for the disk.

2. The last poster was on to something. For some reason these drivers do not always install correctly and the multimedia settings are not always changed.

I would try turning off Plug-n-pray in the bios and defining an IRQ for the sound. I believe slot3 and onboard audio are shared. Try keeping devices out of it if possible. Check for conflicts from within windows. And last but not least double check your jumpers.

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I always do what the voices in my head tell me!

[Shard92]

First off, thanks for the responses. Second this was one of those "I need back tomorrow" rush cases so it already went out ( with an ISA sound card, but hey it worked! ) Also I only had limited time to work on it and then another tech took over( shift change you might say) and was able to finish it so ( with the ISA sound fix ) that the customer could pick it up bright and early next day. I didn't think to check the mulimedia settings, I'll have to remember that next time, but I did try another PCI sound card and that had other problems. And being a small shop we didn't have a large selection of Cards to choose from. The button is greyed out and about half the time the device is flagged in the device manager. By the way ShawnMt it's at least comfortable to know someone else has noticed the fussy machines! I guess technology is just moving too fast and no one is taking the time to make sure things are compatible!

Larommi, like I said the machine is gone but if I get my hands on it or a similiar system I will check the multimedia settings though I'm not sure that is the prblem. I do think a lot of it has to do with the driver though. Yes the sound and Slot 3 are sharing an IRQ but I tried separating them and all and that didn't help, but thanks that was a good idea and has worked in other cases for me.

Hey ShawnMT and Larommi and anyone else, What do you all think of ESS sound. I've heard mixed reviews from different people but I've always had good luck with them ( up until now) Most have been ISA though and as long as the people who put the card together aren't totally idiots, cards with ess chipset have done the job. Opinions?

Thanks all!

GLSmith

[Larommi]

Originally posted by Shard92:
First off, thanks for the responses. Second this was one of those "I need back tomorrow" rush cases so it already went out ( with an ISA sound card, but hey it worked! ) Also I only had limited time to work on it and then another tech took over( shift change you might say) and was able to finish it so ( with the ISA sound fix ) that the customer could pick it up bright and early next day. I didn't think to check the mulimedia settings, I'll have to remember that next time, but I did try another PCI sound card and that had other problems. And being a small shop we didn't have a large selection of Cards to choose from. The button is greyed out and about half the time the device is flagged in the device manager. By the way ShawnMt it's at least comfortable to know someone else has noticed the fussy machines! I guess technology is just moving too fast and no one is taking the time to make sure things are compatible!

Larommi, like I said the machine is gone but if I get my hands on it or a similiar system I will check the multimedia settings though I'm not sure that is the prblem. I do think a lot of it has to do with the driver though. Yes the sound and Slot 3 are sharing an IRQ but I tried separating them and all and that didn't help, but thanks that was a good idea and has worked in other cases for me.

Hey ShawnMT and Larommi and anyone else, What do you all think of ESS sound. I've heard mixed reviews from different people but I've always had good luck with them ( up until now) Most have been ISA though and as long as the people who put the card together aren't totally idiots, cards with ess chipset have done the job. Opinions?

Thanks all!

GLSmith

I think it is a good enough low budget card. Although a SB16 is only a few bucks more. I am using my onboard sound on my P5A board now because I find it better that the Creative PCI128 heap, that is now in my NT machine. I have had good luck with ESS I have never not gotten one to work. I don't think I have ever even had an IRQ issue with one. (give me time though, I am sure I will)



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I always do what the voices in my head tell me!