Sb 5.1 Live

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Anyone had any experience with the SB Live 5.1 ,specificaly I have an ALS4000 sound card and I am changing to a SB5.1Live should I uninstall the driver from the existing sound card first or leave it in its slot and just put the SB in another slot or just do a straite swop? are there any probs havin two soundcards; interrups etc?

[Garak]

I would uninstall the drivers and replace the als4000 with the SB 5.1 - Leaving the card in would just used another IRQ and possibly cause a conflict on the game port side, can't really remember last time I had a machine with 2 sound cards...

[NooNoo]

Two sounds in the same machine... I would be surprised if it booted!

Boot to safemode, uninstall any software from add/remove programs for it, then go to device manager and remove each of the devices for the ALS4000. Shut down, remove the card.

Put the sblive in, boot straight into bios setup and if you have it, enable force escd update. Save that and reboot. This will force a hardware update and windows should be much happier.

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Originally posted by NooNoo
Two sounds in the same machine... I would be surprised if it booted!

Ill let you know if it does!!!

[STIGOFTHEDUMP]

Originally posted by NooNoo
Two sounds in the same machine... I would be surprised if it booted!
then go to device manager and remove each of the devices for the ALS4000.

Put the sblive in, boot straight into bios setup and if you have it, enable force escd update.

I assume that when you say "each of the devices" you mean any device that has Avance as its manufacturer, also I have not heard of "force escd"what is?

[NooNoo]

Force ESCD is a setting in some bioses... it ensures the hardware gets updated. If you don't have this, then reboot with out ANY sound card in to windows, then shut down again.

Under sound and multimedia devices you normally get the sound card, a joystick port, and sb16 emulation and a midi player... sometimes you get more. With Creative stuff sometimes get a controller which is not listed under multimedia, but has its own entry in device manager.

[STIGOFTHEDUMP]

Thanks again Noo, I will let you know how it goes!

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Originally posted by NooNoo
Force ESCD is a setting in some bioses... . If you don't have this, then reboot with out ANY sound card in to windows, then shut down again.

Well first thanks for the invaluable advice NooNoo, I would advise anyone else to do the same .......before adding new hardware (eg soundcard) reboot without the new card,second dont use the install CD unless you realy have too, after a bit of nudging XP did indeed install the SB for me. The SB is ten times better than my last soundcard,......one thing on bootup I get the message "Plug &Play Configuration error" it doesnt seem to affect anything & its only on the screen for about three seconds, can I loose it?

[NooNoo]

This means the bios has still got its knickers in a twist...


Make a note of your current bios configuration (yes all of them)
Either reset cmos using the jumper, or go into bios and set bios to defaults. Save and Exit

Now go check the clock and correct it necessary. Save and exit, reboot. If you then get a windows xp start up error, then go back to the bios and compare your old config settings with the default... change the settings one at a time till you find the one that's causing the problem.

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Well Noo I have had a look round,I am gonna be a pest and ask how I find my BIOS configuration or how I set it to default come to that! still new at this!

[NooNoo]

Err usually you press DEL key to go into bios setup when its first starting and says "Press DEL to enter bios" or similar.

[Kermit D. Frog]

Hey Stig, make sure you go to the creative website and download the newest drivers and software for the 5.1 SB card. I've had some problems with the original drivers on a couple of XP boxes. The new drivers make it work much more smoothly.....

[STIGOFTHEDUMP]

Originally posted by Kermit D. Frog
Hey Stig, make sure you go to the creative website and download the newest drivers and software for the 5.1 SB card. I've had some problems with the original drivers on a couple of XP boxes. The new drivers make it work much more smoothly.....

First; thanks kermit ill av a look!
Well I have had a good look at the BIOS settings and wrote em down like you suggested(Noo) but thats as far as I seem to get, I cant seem to find the BIOS default. I dont know if it makes any difference but the "Plug&Play configuration error" appears, 5 lines of it, rite after the Optiplex G1 400L version screen has loaded(its a pentium 2 on a Dell) like I said the soundcard is fine its just a bit annoying having an error message every boot! One more thing,the BIOS screen only gives me this--change settings&exit.....Dont change settings&exit there is no deafault I can see (but thats me!!)

[STIGOFTHEDUMP]

Oh by the way no sb in no error message ;old card in = no error message so its gotta be the sb aint it?

[NooNoo]

Yep, you didn't mention it was a dell...

OK about the only way to reset the bios on this err machine... is to remove the battery for a while

http://docs.us.dell.com/docs/systems/ddur/rr6_15.htm

that is how to do it if you have a mini tower

And this is for the midsize
http://docs.us.dell.com/docs/systems/ddur/rr5_15.htm

And this is for the low profile. http://docs.us.dell.com/docs/systems/ddur/rr4_14.htm

BTW have you tried the sblive in other slots?

Read this to ascertain whether you are using ACPI or not and let us know.