No sound from Sound Blaster PCI 128 in Win98

It is unlikely that there is a problem with the card. It is important  when installing sound drivers that they are not installed over anything else, so therefore make sure that everything to do with the soundcard is deleted or removed from the computer (in control panel or your sound software may have an uninstall facility), restart and then let win98 find and install the sound from scratch. (Make sure that the installation disk is in place and that the installer looks to the correct installation path)

Good luck!
odenne

Hopes it helps.

I suspect incorrect driver is installed..

1. Right Click My Computer

2. Click Properties

3. Go to Second Tab : Device Manager

4. Look for any ? or !

5. Remove it all.

6. Restart computer.

7. Make sure the card is detected by the Win 98 during start up.

8. If not detected, possibly open your computer case and pull out the sound card and place it back in another PCI slot.

9. When detected, install the CORRECT driver.(can go to the manufacturer websites to download the latest version)

Good Luck!
 

I had the same problem until I noticed that the Sound Blaster PC 128 requires powered speakers. My speakers had a power cord, but something was wrong with the power. After trying a set of powered speakers, the card worked fine.

Can you try a set of headphones in the card to see if they work?

Right click my computer,

Properties,

Device manager,

Double click my computer in the list or click and select properties.

See if any other device is using the same IRQ.

It is possible that some times at boot, the conflicting device is grabbing the irq prior to the sound card, and sometimes the sound card is grabbing the irq prior to the conflicting device.

That would indicate to me a possibility of why your volume control icon appears sometimes, and sometimes not.

Also make sure you have the correct playback device selected under the mulitmedia properties.

Hope this helps.

OOPS, missed the no resource conflicts in your question.

Sorry about that.

Is this an OEM 128 provided by a hardware manufacturer?  Compaq for example puts a SB128 in some of its computers and they use a different driver than the creative one - if it is OEM make sure to go to the computer manufacturer's web page for the driver, not the creative web page

If all above fails, under devices, remove the driver and shut down.  When windows reboots it should recognize the card, build a database for it and will ask for the driver disk.

If that works and you get a speaker icon in the tray, open this and choose advanced options and add the ones not checked.  Sometimes there will be a slide bar checked that should not be.  

Give it a try and let me know.
Regards

Resource conflicts don't always show.

However the SB128 OEM or not likes IRQ 5 or IRQ 10 best. IRQ 9 should not be use due the 'cascade' function it carries out.

There is also often a jumper to enable or disable the speaker amplifier. Non powered speakers need the amplifier turned on. For powered speakers the best sound quality is obtained with amplifier off as connection to an external amp.

Storm ;-)

If you have trouble changing the IRQ of the card - move the card to another slot. Or if your bios has the option set the IRQ of the slot to one of the IRQs I recommended. Move other devices if required

Storm ;-)

As already said, removing the device from the device manager - including ANY unkown devices! is the thing to do. Reboot and let the plug and play (make sure the BIOS plug and play with an OS i.e Windows is turned on) find the card.

I would without question always recommend the Creative drivers for a card or chip sound card.

This is the link to the correct drivers for your card and windows version:

http://www.soundblaster.com/drivers/

Since the windows volume control is loaded (yellow speaker) it will appear only when a valid speaker driver is loaded. Which in turn will ONLY load when a card is found. If the speaker is lost while using windows (or after a warm reboot) there is and IRQ clash(or these days rare base address / DMA clash)

This may not be flagged since the sound card will only use the IRQ when making sound and at startup the other device may yet to be loaded.

Storm ;-)

It would be strange but it is possible to mute the sound via the volume control. If you double-click the speaker (not single click) make sure the little box at the bottom of each sound device (main volume/midi/wave etc) has no tick if is says mute/disable or a tick if it says enable. Why they are somtimes different I do not know so read carefully!

Just a thought ...

Storm ;-)

Check that all hardware is properly seated and no conflicts exist.
Go to control panels/sound and open.
In sound tab, check any sounds you want to use. Check the box "show volume control".
In audio tab, under sound playback, check that your sound card is showing.
Click on the volume button.
Click on menu options/properties
Check the playback radio button, and check all the appropriate boxes.
Be sure your sound card is showing.
Hit ok when finished.
Be sure no mutes are checked in volume
control except for mic.  Close out.
Click the advanced button/speakers and choose your speakers. Click on performance tab/restore defaults and click ok.
Click on voice tab, check for your card and click on voice test. Perform test.
Click on devices, expand the plus and be sure there is a device for each.
You can also adjust your recording  settings from same procedure.
Be sure you have checked the above comments re: power speakers and IRQ settings, etc.
centerv

Funny how many of us mentioned the speaker icon in the tray, but is is important.  I'm using a Sound Blaser Live Drive platinum series.

Will not do crap without that little icon.  Especially when you double click it and  go the advanced.  I never realized what I was missing with the new Live Drive.

As many of the suggestons, if something is still amiss, I'll be surpised, there are good comment here, and I'm sure more to follow until we find a fix...we don't give up.

I just went through something similar - nearly drove me crazy. After half a day of struggling it turned out that the card and or driver doesn't like the IRQ 9 that is assigned to it, even though it doesn't show up as a error. In the end I went to BIOS setup, specified which PCI slot should get which IRQ and turned OFF the PnP OS setting, and presto! card worked.

If your BIOS doesn't have this option, try the following: Change the IRQ on one of your other cards (either hardware or through Control Panel -> System) to 9 and reboot. Then install the SB drivers and reboot again. Change the other card back to some unassigned IRQ if neccesary.

Yes, as I said above IRQ 9 is a pain for some cards. There are two IRQ controllers providing 8 IRQs each. If my memory is correct (and thats not often) IRQ 2 'cascades' to IRQ 9 to join them up and so provide the full 16 IRQs 0-15. Some devices cant cope with this and although do not show a conflict they sure act like they have one

I have found Adaptec SCSI cards don't seem to care about IRQ 9, but my sound card (a Soundblaster 128) and network card do.

Storm ;-)

The card is not an OEM version. At least I didn't see any indication of that.

Here is a little history how I came to my problematic situation: First I tried with a very old ISA sound card (Sound Blaster CT1530A that had the year 1991 printed on it). In the motherboard there were two ISA -slots, one combined ISA/PCI -slot and one PCI-slot. I tried the card in the combined slot, but the system didn't recognize the card. The BIOS is very simple and had no IRQ or PCI-setting alternatives. Because I didn't get the card working, I bought that PCI-128. At the weekend I tried several suggestions presented here and didn't succeed. This is why I took again the old card and tried it in the different ISA-slot. Now the system recognized the card and started working. I left the old card there.

I think that the solution to the PCI-128 problem must be somehow related to the PCI-slots. I got an answer from the Local SB representative that maybe the card simply does not work in some computers.

Glad you fixed your own problem, but I think your SB rep meant to say in some older PC's.


Anyway best of luck, and if something goes wrong, we're here for you.

Yes, I think so. Thanks.

first thing I found with these cards is its actually a driver conflict with win98 I managed to get mine working by going into the device manager and remove all multimedia devices and restart your pc
if the card is working properly then it should attempt to install the drivers click cancel then download the latest driver from the creative website and extract it into a temp dir. open the temp dir and just double click on the win98 INF file this will just install the drivers ... this worked with fairly good results ... however I upgraded to win2000 and the card works flawlessly ...

Other solutions is to simply insta;; windows again over the top of your orginal install ( i.e without deleting windows first ) and install the drivers in windows setup.

hope this helps you out

Well, after having gone through a similar situation, I recommend the following as a test/solution.

Note the current IRQ setting of your sound card. Change the IRQ on your sound card to IRQ 5. Make sure your video card isn't using this IRQ.

You'll have to override the default settings to do this. Reboot and see if you have sound. Don't worry about other devices as this is only a test. If you have sound, you will have to change the resources on the other device that is using IRQ 5 or change the type of sound card you are using to one that will use the noted IRQ above. Some Sound Blaster cards will only work with certain IRQ's.

Best of luck. Will watch for further posts.

Larry

So, I assume since you got the system working, you took the PCI card back for a refund?

And I hoop some our suggestions here helped.

Lampola, I think under the circumstances here, you need to contact Community Services regarding the points situation.

naeblis, Under the rules of this site, I think in all regards, you should retract you're answer, and repost it as a comment.  Nothing personnal, but under the guidelines posted for E-E's this answer would be improper unless you are 300% sure of you're answer.

Regards

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It appears, one if not more of your comments were in fact beforehand included in the above

I tried newer and older drivers and different methods of installation and I once tried reinstallation of Win98. I think that the problem is deeper in the hardware or BIOS.

I have also came to this conclusion. I had to return the pc to its owner. I got the sounds working with an older ISA sound card. I am not able to verify any more the possible other solutions.