5.1 Sound Card Crashes Windows

[DOSMAN]

Ok, so I was using my nice Logitech Z640 speakers on my onboard stereo card, and wanted to get the whole 5.1 surround action, so I enabled the 5.1 card which has been plugged in my comp for ages (i bought it from leishi85).

So I changed the default sound card on my comp, but whenever Windows tries to play a sound, it will go for about .5 seconds and then FREEZE-

At that point, all I can do is power off. I couldn't even login to windows because the login sound will lock up my comp.

All I can basically do is go into safe mode and disable the card. Then I'm back in fine with the onboard, crappy sound.

Any ideas here?

[Flintstone]

I think you must frist remove the old sound card in windows, restart, then shut it off in the bios, let windows reboot without the new card in, shut down, insert the new card and reboot, let windows find it and load drivers for it. That's my opinion and I'm stickin' to it!

Flint

[profdlp]

I second Flintstone's advice. When you put the card back in you might want to try it in a different slot, too. :)

[kanezfan]

i think your problem boils down to your system trying to use the two sound cards simultaneously

[DOSMAN]

I'll try your advice. It sounds reasonable, but I still dont see why Windows cant handle both.

[DOSMAN]

Well, I tried all that with no luck.

Is there anything special to installing the drivers?

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?

[ryko]

did you disable the onboard sound in your BIOS?

[DOSMAN]

Hmm. I decided to remove the modem (hasnt been any use to me for a while), and i decided to move the sound card to that slot. And it worked!!..... kinda.

My center speaker will not go. The other 4 work fine. Any ideas?

(This should probably be moved to "Sound and Video" since it is no longer a critical, non-booting thing).

[DOSMAN]

Also, my rear 2 speakers kind of crackle for a fraction of a second before they start playing.


EDIT:

Is there a built in speaker test? To send data to each speaker, one at a time?

[kanezfan]

is this an sblive?

[DOSMAN]

Dont think so.

Device Manager calls it a CMI8738/C3DX

[profdlp]

What's your MB brand/model/chipset?

[DOSMAN]

Epox 8K9A2+

[Straight_Man]

CMI8738 is a C-Media chip spec. Look in your motherboard manual, disable onboard sound on motherboard. Probably the Card and onboard sound are both trying to talk to Windows on same resource channels. Other possible conflicts are with a NIC or unsually configured modem (modem on COM5 can indeed use same resources as far as IRQ as a sound card), so can a NIC, but onboard AND a card will toss windows media stuff for a loop unless you can config around it. Easier first to disable onboard sound, then install drivers for card (remove them, the reinstall them). Lots of motherboards do this with a jumper, some also have soft disabling switch in BIOS (BIOS might show it as an embedded peripheral in advanced or PNP area(s) of BIOS setup screens), if yours has both, use both.

[Kaydo]

I have had the same problems with a C-Media based soundcard locking up both windows and linux after about 5 minutes of use. After looking around on the internet it seems to be a fairly common problem and all I can think of is that the hardware is faulty.