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andreashitzbleck

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Soundblaster 128 crackles under Windows 2000

I've got installed Windows 2000 professional and I bought a Soundblaster 128 PCI. All works fine, but the card crackles when I start any program or when there is any activity on my hdd. Anybody there who has got an idea?
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MnNCOMM

Make sure you have the correct and NEWEST drivers. (The drivers on the CD out of the box were outdated by 1 year  before the product was even shipped " I have 3 of them I know and do this all the time for customers")

WWW.SBLIVE.com

If it is the same sound that crackles, select a different sound.

Take the startup wav sound out and have NO startup wav. See if there is a difference. Usually a currupt start/exit sound can cause windows to hang on start or Exit too.

If this does not work, you may have a IRQ conflict (SB Live uses TWO IRQs) or you may have a DMA channel problem crashing into something. See if you can change the DMA channel. If you have an Adaptec card, it may be interferring with it.

Some people put all their cards in at once and then install the OS "And Let It Rip". For the most part it should work fine, however I have seen much greater results to either add the sound card later, or have only the SBLIVE card in at initial install. Try uninstalling everything, remover the card, use a different slot and reinstall using the new drivers from SBLIVE.com.

 

Or you can call Creative Labs at 405-742-6655 (If this number has not changed)

Let me know how ya make out
Avatar of andreashitzbleck

ASKER

well, my card shares irq 9 with 3 other devices, but they are all pci and work fine.
The first thing I did was to delete the startup-sound, but this didn't have any effort at all.

So, I searched for a new driver at sblive.com, but there is no driver for win2000 and soundblaster 128 PCI.

At the end, I took this card off and put in my old crystal card again. This works fine :-)
Driver problem for sure.

The 128's are a lot more picky then the SBLIVE's.

Sorry about my mistake. I thought I saw you had an SBLIVE. For your 128 go to WWW.Creaf.com and select the new drivers for the 128. The are there, I just saw them. I was not reading it correctly. Goes to show when you have ya mind on something else.

I never had a 128 work out of the box without the newset drivers. I always had to get CDs mailed to me from Creative to use cuz the one in the boxes never even detected the card.

Maybe it is just my luck

Anyways, free up an IRQ or two by disabling a com port or USB Hub or something. IRQ 5 likes to be set for network cards (Mostly) and IRQ 9 is always flaky. Change the slot, free up an IRQ somewhere and see if it works.

If you have no IRQs to free, remove the sound card, make sure 9 and 5 have something on it, THEN put the 128 in so it uses something else.

Now I have seen this work on 5 & 9, but have seen more problems then seen it without. Also Creative will tell you the same thing on the phone.

Try disabling 16bit DMA...(?)
I had a similar problem. It may sound wacky but this worked for me : Open the Volume Control App, Go to Options/Properties, choose show IIS and then select Mute on the IIS slider control.

Hope this helps.
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warby

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