Sound card problem

ddub1968,

It would be helpful if you could give us the type of hardwre you have.  CPU, Motherboard, ram, videocard, sound card etc etc etc...maybe there are conflicts with other cards etc etc....

Conflicting devices is my guess also.  Do you have a NIC card?  A second parallel port?  Try taking all other peripherals out and just starting with the sound card.  Does it work now?

try starting the computer in safe mode and remove everything under sound devices in the device manager, restart and reinstall your drivers.

Thanks for the comments guys. Ok, its a 750 Athlon, installed on an Abit KA7 motherboard with just memmman pc133 memory (256) Its a plain old generic GForce 2 video card, the sound card is a creative pc 128 card. Its my son's computer and he said before it wasnt locking up at all. Then it started locking up in Yuri's Revenge and once in Medal of Honor. Its like it was increasingly getting worse. Then I upgraded to XP and thats when it wouldnt get past the welcome screen. An idea though, at the welcome screen is when it loads most drivers, so is it a corrupt driver somehow? Maybe I didnt get them all out when I deleted and reinstalled? Removing the card from device manager, will that remove all drivers? Im just wondering if it is time to upgrade him, maybe the motherboard is bad and I need to tell the wife its time to upgrade :) :)  Thats what my son is hoping!! Thanks again for the help guys, this site is excellent..

removing it from the device manager most likely won't remove the actual driver files.  One thing you could try is to just disable it in the device manager instead of removing it.  Then see if you can get into windows.

Another thing you could try is to open the device manager and go under the view menu and select "show hidden devices" and see if there's now anything under sound that shouldn't be there.

From what you described about the sound card getting worse it appears as if the sound card needs to be replaced, try another brand is my suggestion as you wont have any old driver issues.

It appears that it has something to do with the sound blaster drivers, have no idea why. I did everything you guys suggested, unistalled, disabled, removed, reinstalled, ect. ect. The minute I install the card and it tries loading the sound blaster drivers it locks up. I take the card out and everything is fine. When the "new device found" appears and it starts loading thats when it locks up now. If all the drivers are installed (after several attempts it will eventually get them all in) thats when it locks up at the windows welcome screen or occassionally it gets to the desktop and then locks up..Ive tried two different sound blaster cards and its the same exact thing. I dont have another brand to try. Maybe I need to just get another card, they are fairly inexpensive. was hoping it would be just an easy fix. Thanks again everyone for your input!

Have you tried taking other peripherals out to see if there is a device conflict?

The only other peripherals that are in there is the video card and network card. I took the network card out and it still did it. The other thing I should have mentioned is that when I upgraded to XP I re-formatted first. So it was a clean install on everything.

The NIC is generally what a sound card will interfere with.  Have you tried switching the slots around to see if that helps?

reinstall the sound card / change the slot

did you physically install the sound card yourself if so remove all the drivers delete the .inf file for the card  ( only for the card not the others - if you can find it ) then open the system (physically) and chane the slot of the card. windows will redetect the card once again if possible download new drivers and dont use the drivers on the driver CD, never use the drivers copied on the HardDisk


this works as good as installing a new sound card
NB:
1. recheck for clashes  
       a) Network
       b) motherboard resources

2. this also happens when windows auto detects the    
   hardware so make sure you are installing the drivers
   and not windows.

If you remove the card physically, will WinXP finish booting?  You may need to install the VIA 4-in-1 drivers also:
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

ALso, go in the BIOS setup and there is a setting for "15-16MB Memory Hole", turn this to Enabled and see if it helps (from the KA7 FAQ).

I have this exact same board (its in the box ATM though, upgraded to an AthlonXP 1800+) and it gave me a ton of headaches, but finally got it straightened out.

-dog*

Hmm, I'm not seeing my link for the KA7 FAQ, so here it is again:
http://www.viahardware.com/faq/ka7/ka7faq.htm

Stupid firewall!

-dog*

OK, so it didn't post my first response at all, great....

So try going into the BIOS setup and loading Optimized defaults.  You may have to go back in and tweak a few of the settings, etc but that should help.

-dog*

Hey guys...thanks for all the comments but....I was on Creative's website and it doesnt show that it is Xp complient but then again Ive used the same card with XP in another computer...I actually bought a cheapy motherboard and it works fine now. Go figure...Thanks for all the help though anyway!