ASUS P5P800 - Soundmax Audio

**burnttree** · September 7th, 2005, 05:53 AM

Installed P5P800 mobo and Intel Celeron 2.8 pcu.

System is Win 98se.

Installed all driver from supplied CD.

Everything is running at twice the speed of light EXCEPT - Soundmax audio.
SMax is a onboard / mobo sound system.

Having visited countless sites for info,drivers etc I have come to the conclusion:

ADI Soundmax cannot help - they blame ASUS (who are useless) and ASUS suggest Intel may help. Sound driver is installed in Device manager and is "working correctly". But no sound functions available in multi media set up panel.

Hundred of forums across the world report similar problems with mobo sound systems.

I may have to find a sound card to fit the pci slot and stuff Soundmax.

It is an outrage that hardware/software can be sold to the public when 9 times out ten the stuff does not work correctly.

Can you imagine being told by Ford that if you car does start to go to front wheel and kick it 2 times then turn the ignition key on off 3 times and whistle dixie up the exhaust pipe.

Well thats one basicly Windows tell you to do.

**NooNoo** · September 7th, 2005, 06:54 AM

Well... you might turn this around a bit... Why would you buy a brand new car with a good engine and then insist of fitting a 7 year old engine management system? A management system that only knows about engines of 7 years ago? How can you possibly expect it to run the engine at optimum efficiency? Do you expect that the engine manufacturers have a duty to provide backward compatibility to older engine management systems?

Having said that, if you know which Soundmax chip is used, perhaps an older driver version may solve the problem. Please post the details of the soundmax chip.

**burnttree** · September 7th, 2005, 09:03 AM

Hi NooNoo.

If ASUS / Intel / ADI Soundmax thought the products would not run on Win 98se this should be clearly stated in the instructions. I have another PC running XP so will swap the HD into the PC with the problems and see if soundmax runs on XP.

ADI Soundmax website will tell you that as the sound is built into the mobo you have to get help from ASUS, who make the mobo. Have downloaded all the latest drivers (Win98se) and bios updates. All to no avail. As a matter of interest the majority of sound problems with inbuilt mobo sound systems appear to be on XP.

**Ferrit** · September 7th, 2005, 09:20 AM

Hope the other system has exactly the same hardware
And just for your information.
I build a ton of systems with onboard audio(same soundmax)and rarely if ever have any issues with the drivers. Mind you i wont use Asus for some of the reasons you have said already

**NooNoo** · September 7th, 2005, 09:53 AM

And the details of the soundmax chip are?

have you installed the last two drivers here? - the ACPI and Chipset drivers.

Asus Specs are down at the moment for that board... the P5P800 with no letters (p5p800-mx and p5p800s are the other two and seem to use realtek codecs) uses ADI 1985 with an Intel 865PE chipset. If so have you tried Intels version of this?

Download the above driver to c:\sound

Uninstall all previous audio drivers. Shut down, restart, go into bios and disable onboard sound - usually two places sometimes 3. Restart and ensure that any mention of sound devices have gone - if they haven't you missed a setting in the bios and/or didn't remove some files.

Shut down restart, get to desktop. This is to ensure windows is sure you don't have any sound. Install (or reinstall) the chipset driver linked above. Skip this step at your peril.

Shut down, restart go into bios, re enable the audio settings.
Allow windows to boot, cancel any request for drivers. When it has got to desktop, navigate to c:\sound and double click the downloaded file. It should then install and request a reboot.

When that has been completed, examine your device manager. Are there any unknown devices or any with ! next to them? If so, what are they and what error codes are shown in the properties?

**burnttree** · September 7th, 2005, 05:37 PM

Many thanks for all the advice. I have tried nearly all the things suggested and will leave things alone for a while, I need to actually use the pc for the next few days instead of changing setting and installing drivers.

One thing that has struck me is that the P5P800 mobo is designed for Intel Pentium 4 processor and my mobo has Intel Celeron processor. I have brought this to the attention of ASUS ( a nice lady in China is dealing with my problem) support desk and await an answer.

No information on soundmax chipset , either in handbook for mobo or onscreen ASUS probe screen. May have a number on mobo sound processor but need microscope to read print.

Found S/Blaster 16 card in box in attic , can't remember any trouble with that.

**burnttree** · September 8th, 2005, 01:59 AM

Glad to hear of your success with your systems. However see this thread.

http//forums.windrivers.com/showthread.php?t=8190.

This message convinced me that the problem is not an isolated one.

Not everyone is an expert. But my point is that putting in a mobo/processor should not be such a problem with good thought out software and operating systems.

**NooNoo** · September 8th, 2005, 03:46 AM

http//forums.windrivers.com/showthread.php?t=8190 refers to the age old wdm problem. 98se/ME could use the newer wdm drivers or the older 95 style (vxd). In many cases the onboard sound would become a casualty. The fix was simply to use the vxd and not the wdm driver version. This was not exclusively an Asus or a Soundmax problem, it would crop up with any wdm sound driver on any board.

Unfortunately for you there is no 95 driver for this codec. For you it is a matter of making sure the chipset drivers are in place first then using the wdm. Another thing that may have a bearing on the matter is that Windows updates need to be in place as well as the chipset drivers before attempting the driver reinstall. Many people had no problem whatsoever running wdm sound drivers in 98se or ME. It all seemed to be down to what order drivers and updates were applied.

here are all the driver versions for the adi1985 sound

**burnttree** · September 8th, 2005, 10:05 AM

Hi NooNoo.

Talking about vxd files . Since installing the P5P800 MoBo etc- Windows 98se startup screen reports missing vxd files that system ini/registry is looking for. I thought this was a network problem and have ignored it.

best regards.

**NooNoo** · September 8th, 2005, 12:34 PM

Nope not necessarily.. it may indicate that other files are missing and is perhaps the underlying cause for your sound woes. Did you format this box or just swap the mobo?

**burnttree** · September 8th, 2005, 04:30 PM

No I did not do anything except fit new MoBo. I am thinking of putting in new HD and starting from scratch with windows xp. In for a penny in for a pound.

Old MoBo had pci soundcard , creative products. so registry may be all screwed up. Did try to install xp as an upgrade to 98se but installation ground to a halt after 15 minutes, tried a few times - same thing.

No problems getting drivers loaded into device manager, but soundmax software panel will not come on screen with full panel and multi media panel is dead on audio section. I'm glad the new MoBo pcu fan is multi speed and quiet, cause thats the only sound I can hear at the moment.

The sea is like the land - only wetter.

**NooNoo** · September 9th, 2005, 03:32 AM

I'm surprised that sound was your only problem after what you put that operating system through!

If you want to keep 98se, delete the enum key from hkey_local_machine in the registry and reload ALL drivers correctly - starting with the chipset and ACPI drivers.

It is an outrage that hardware/software can be sold to the public when 9 times out ten the stuff does not work correctly.

Your operating system did its level best to work out what you wanted. Your comment there is entirely unfair.

**burnttree** · September 9th, 2005, 06:54 AM

Hi NooNoo.

I don't think my comments are unfair. Type "Soundmax Problems" in web browser ( as I did when encountered with my problem) and wow!!!!!. Page after page of similar stories.

Did I ever tell you about the "Time" PC we bought 12 years ago (with a cheap 200w PSU) No-one told me that the PSU was rubbish and would cause numerous crashes. It took the broadband engineer to tell me the problem was
a very common fault with Time Computers.

The PC industry is not for the faint hearted.

I do appreciate your help.

best regards
Burnttree

**NooNoo** · September 9th, 2005, 07:54 AM

The exact same thing can be said of the car market.

If you don't do your research, if you don't ask experts first, then you open yourself up to all kinds of hassle.

Time computers were cheap, didn't you ever wonder why there were more expensive computers?

As to your remark 9 out of 10... no way. Just because you saw a load of posts does not make it 9 out of 10... not even close. More like 1 out of 10 and most of those were self inflicted.

**burnttree** · September 9th, 2005, 05:22 PM

Hi NooNoo.

If you are in the "trade" of any business ( cars - computers) you learn of all weak points , that the buying public are not aware of.

You can't expect ordinary folk to know that Volvo V6 engines made by Renualt were crap. You can't expect ordinary folk to know that Windows OS are unstable and that updates can do more harm than good.

Anyway , good news - in a fashion. Put spare HD in and deleted drive, fdisk etc and loaded 98se . Loaded MoBo CD drivers and Graphics Card drivers.

Soundmax works.

So my main HD has a very dodgy ( as you said ) 98se OS. Problem is, I use it for business and can't afford to risk re-installing 98se and possibly losing any programmes.

regards

burnttree