Sound VERY low

[The Computer Valet]

Hi,

I'm working right now on a Dell PC with a Sound Blaster (Esoniq) PCI 64V card in it.

The problem was .... drum roll .... no sound.

I hooked up some amplified speakers to it as they were using some really bad unamped speakers and I can hear sound.

But it's VERY, VERY LOW ... and it doesn't sound quite right like we're missing tones or something.

Any thoughts?

I must be missing something EXTREMELY simple...

edit: All volumes are full blast, including the speaker's knob volume. So main, wave and all are up.

m

[gazzak]

Silly reply time. Are the speakers plugged into the right place? I mean there are 3 possible "holes" to be plugged!! Try another.

[The Computer Valet]

Silly reply time. Are the speakers plugged into the right place? I mean there are 3 possible "holes" to be plugged!! Try another.

Yeah, I'm afraid they are in the right spot. :-) I will do it thrice.

m

[The Computer Valet]

Yeah, that's not the issue. Sound is still low.

Maybe the amp on the card is just fubar?

[NooNoo]

what amp? thats why the speakers have to be powered. More likely that the jacks are dead or dying. Hookup the line out to a hifi, you still get low sound?

[The Computer Valet]

Sorry, NooNoo. I made a leap of ignorance. I suppose I don't quite understand why some sound cards seem to do well with speakers that have no separate volume controls while others don't. Is it because these sounds cards have a built-in AMP and this one doesn't?

Anyway, I know that this sound card has been put on many different types of speakers with exactly the same result.

I think the card's fubar.

m

[techs]

what amp?
There is an amp on every sound card. It may be more accurate to call it a pre-amp. This is the same "type" of pre-amp you find in audio equipment. It puts out a standard (I think 1.5volt) signal that the amplifier then amplifies.
It is possible the Ensonique is not reaching this standard.
btw some earlier sound cards had amps that put out higher than normal preamp signals. These worked with unpowered speakers. Nowadays you don't see this anymore.

[tommo666]

Dell that were shipped with the 64v soundcard have a diagnostic programs on the resource cd. This is a creative program (not Dell) and it extracts to a floppy. It creates a boot disk which runs the diags. This should also be on the dell support site under the system tag in the downloads section. It should give an indicatiion of any hardware errors.

I changed many of these cards in the past, I play with enterpise stuff and SAN's now but it brings back memories :-) Mind you i still do desktops,laptos etc. Yes, i am a Dell engineer (no flames please :-))

I wouldn't spend too long on it, if it's still in warranty go the Dell route. If not a better card can be bought for a few quid

[NooNoo]

You work out of Bracknell Tommo?

[tommo666]

No, i'm a third party maintainer, my comany has some of the warranty work. You may see our name on the pga golf or rugby world cup coz we do the scoring for those.I basically work from home. Get the jobs, go out and fix em. Then there's the san installs on the top. It all fun. I go to Bracknell for training. I seem to spend loads of time training about 2-3 month in a year total. Keeps me up to date. It paid for the mcp i had to do last week :-)

[NooNoo]

very nice.