I have a tiny Casio FIVA MPC-103 subnote which came with Windows ME installed, but I have been running 98SE for the past couple years... Until this past weekend when I decided to finally try XP (I never felt ME was worth the effort to learn a "new" OS, but seems now we must all eventually upgrade to XP since increasingly new software is not supported by 98SE or ME.)
I don't know all the details, but it seems that my little computer uses a low power consumption Cyrix (or National Semiconductor) "Geode" 300Mhz Pentium MMX compatible CPU with integrated graphics and audio. (The factory drivers came with names like XpressGRAPHICS and XpressAUDIO.) I think the "Cyrix" brand is now owned by VIA but no one seems to offer any support for the older products. I have done what I think is a pretty thorough search for an XP compatible audio driver, but so far nothing has worked. (I have found some NT and Windows2000 drivers which some people say should or *could* work on XP, but so far no success.) I have even tried searching for drivers for other machines like the NEC 120LT subnote and some "card PC" makers which seem to use the same chip or chipset (I don't understand the details, but it seems that this Cyrix chip has completely integrated audio and graphics all on a single chip?), but so far no one seems to offer support for XP. It seems the chip is just too old. Casio seems to have no intention of supporting this early FIVA product (It didn't sell that well in the first place... I think it was only available in Japan and Europe.)
So, if you have kindly taken the time to read this far, here is my question: Short of paying someone to custom write a driver for me, is there really no way to get sound out of this computer?
I really like the machine despite its age and relatively slow performance. Actually, I own several of them (if you include the similar model MPC-102) and hope to continue using them over the next few years by upgrading to XP.
All in all the XP installation went well, I think... I have upgraded the hard drive to 30G, so I have plenty of drive space for XP. And, I have been pleasantly surprised by an "unexplained" yet apparent increase in CPU performance and memory efficiency over 98SE, so I now I really wish to switch to XP. But, I cannot get any sound. In the end, I may just give up on sound, but I am still hoping there might be some kind of solution I haven't thought of... Any ideas?
Thanks for listening.