FYI; Re: SBLive! Value

[campos562]

After a week or so of experimenting, I finally got my SB Live! card working harmoniously with the rest of my system.
I bought the card over a year ago for $35 OEM. The included CD had Live!Ware 2.0 on it. Using the included driver caused BSODs any time a sound would have played, so I uninstalled and downloaded Live!Ware 3.0. This driver version worked great, except that I had no MIDI playback unless I used the Creative S/W Synth. I then unistalled that and tried again from the beginning. I installed LW 2.0, then upgraded the driver from Creative's site, then installed LW 3.0 over 2.0, and now it works fine, however sans the nifty Creative Playcenter and other apps (I didn't need those anyway!) Now I have a perfectly running PC with a fully functional sound system. Hope this helps someone out there struggling with a similar problem. <IMG SRC="smilies/tongue.gif" border="0">

[Wayward Clam]

The jury still seems to be out on Live!Ware 2.0. There have been a few threads about it, and a few members including myself have had a host of problems with it in Win9x. I never ever install it at work anymore without having 3.0 on the desktop ready to install over it.

On the other hand, some of our members, including our resident porn star, say that they've had no troubles with it whatsoever.

There is the whole VIA Chipset/IRQ 5 discussion to read through as well, but I think that this is another issue on top of that and I suspect it's related to the other hardware in your system. That would explain why it gives some of us grief and others are sitting pretty.

[Darren Wilson]

Never needed to install LiveWare 2 (obviously I had to prior to LW3 being available) and had no problems. The most important thing if you are using a VIA chipset is not to let the card share any resources with anything else. If this means turning off ACPI support then so be it, I would rather turn my system off manually than to put up with any problems. Also ensure that the PCI slot it is placed in does not share with anything else in the HARDWARE settings allocated by the BIOS.

I think a lot of the problems lie with other hardware as Wayward Clam states. The IRQ5 setting to ISA/Legacy is important on boards that have seperate IDE controllers (such as Promise or Highpoint ones) as these tend to conflict hard with the defualt IRQ5 setting that the SB Live! uses for SB Emulation. Obviously the more PVI devices you have the more chance of a problem developing.

Just my own 2 cents & findings.

[Lycia]

Originally posted by RoccoSiffredi:
<STRONG> If this means turning off ACPI support then so be it, I would rather turn my system off manually than to put up with any problems. .</STRONG>

Actually, Darren, I have ACPI turned off in my BIOS and have APM checked in power options in Control Panel, and I can shut Down completely using Start/Shutdown

[Darren Wilson]

Originally posted by Lycia:
<STRONG>

Actually, Darren, I have ACPI turned off in my BIOS and have APM checked in power options in Control Panel, and I can shut Down completely using Start/Shutdown</STRONG>

Which Operating System??? Win2k?? Under Win9x it will stil shut down with ACPI disabled, but 2K is a little bit different & I have never seen a APM check box under Power Options/Control Panel in Win2K either????

[Lycia]

Originally posted by RoccoSiffredi:
<STRONG>

Which Operating System??? Win2k?? Under Win9x it will stil shut down with ACPI disabled, but 2K is a little bit different & I have never seen a APM check box under Power Options/Control Panel in Win2K either????</STRONG>

Sorry, Win2K. It's there for me, Control Panel/Power Options. Then it's the fourth TAB, APM (Advanced Power Management. Says that my "Computer reports that it can support APM."

[Darren Wilson]

Lycia, Like the Pics I posted in the other thread with the four tabs that I have, I am thinking that it could be a Intel chipset feature as the systems I have checked for this have all used VIA chipsets & do not have this function.

[cookin chef]

I think a lot of the problems lie with other hardware as Wayward Clam states. The IRQ5 setting to ISA/Legacy is important on boards that have seperate IDE controllers (such as Promise or Highpoint ones) as these tend to conflict hard with the defualt IRQ5 setting that the SB Live! uses for SB Emulation. Obviously the more PVI devices you have the more chance of a problem developing

Actually, there Rocky. In my experience, I usually leave Irq 5 left for PCI/Pnp instead of isa/legacy setting and just to make sure to check mark enable lpt sharing under Sb16 emulations properties in the device manager. That way it shares interupt 7 and allows Irq 5 to be used with another device. I done that with several builds over the last 3 1/2 years with mbs that either have an Intel or Via chipset. Never had any problems with that setting. But everyone has their own version of fixes and so do I.

[antonye]

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