Totally frustrated please help!!

[Reece]

Updated to a new system and has turned into a nightmare, firstly this started out as an onboard SoundMAX problem in SH3, after 3 days of trying everything I gave up & purchased a sound card (Creative X-fi Xtreme PCI-E), I have tried 2 different slots but the Creative install just says "No supported devices found", I'm running XP Pro (32bit) and I am coming to the conclusion that this card is for vista only, nothing mentioned in the adds where I purchased it, the disk says nothing on it!:cry:
I think I just wasted more time & money!:damn: The motherboard only has PCI-E slots free, can anyone suggest a good relatively cheap Sound card, that will run in XP, just not SoundMAX.:oops::cry:
Thanks.

[Thomen]

Updated to a new system and has turned into a nightmare, firstly this started out as an onboard SoundMAX problem in SH3, after 3 days of trying everything I gave up & purchased a sound card (Creative X-fi Xtreme PCI-E), I have tried 2 different slots but the Creative install just says "No supported devices found", I'm running XP Pro (32bit) and I am coming to the conclusion that this card is for vista only, nothing mentioned in the adds where I purchased it, the disk says nothing on it!:cry:
I think I just wasted more time & money!:damn: The motherboard only has PCI-E slots free, can anyone suggest a good relatively cheap Sound card, that will run in XP, just not SoundMAX.:oops::cry:
Thanks.

Oh, I hate that message. I download usually an older driver pack from creative and install it with that, and then upgrade the drivers if I should encounter problems.

As far as the card itself goes:
Minimum System Requirements: Microsoft® Windows Vista™, Microsoft Windows® XP (Professional x64 Edition, Service Pack 2 or Media Center Edition)

[SteamWake]

Did you remember to disable the on board sound device and un-install its drivers prior to attempting to install the new daughter board?

[Reece]

So I assume Vista or XP 64bit & that's that! I wonder how many others have been caught out, now what to do?!?!:dead::doh::oops::cry:
Did you remember to disable the on board sound device and un-install its drivers prior to attempting to install the new daughter board? Yes, completely.:cry:
I can't get over it, fancy producing a sound card that is Vista only & marked virtually in fine print!!

[danlisa]

So I assume Vista or XP 64bit & that's that! I wonder how many others have been caught out, now what to do?!?!:dead::doh::oops::cry:

Return it for a 32 bit version. Seriously, just state a mistake in ordering and get a correct card swapped for it.

[AVGWarhawk]

Did you remember to disable the on board sound device and un-install its drivers prior to attempting to install the new daughter board?

I go with Steamwake on this. Open the device manager and see what working and what you need to turn off for the onboard sound.

[Graf Paper]

I really feel for you, Reece. It seems that card manufacturers either don't care or hired IT grad school dropouts to write the drivers.

Creative Labs, ATI, and nVidia seem to be the worst offenders.

Soundblaster cards have been going downhill for years now but people still buy them for the name. Do you really need all that audiophile fan-boy stuff? If the answer is no, then there are a few alternatives to Soundblaster cards.

Unfortunately, driver support for the others can be spotty as well, so do your homework.

Before you go crazy with trying to RMA everything, try checking the Creative forums and other forums at places like Tom's Hardware. Only with patience and some research can you fix your troubles.

One last bit...in the other thread, you stated that you increased your mobo's PCI latency from 100 to 110. This increases the delay only slightly. You may actually need to lower the setting to 64 or less. It's meant for legacy PCI cards and your on-board sound may need to have this number lowered or disabled.

I've got my own motherboard, CPU, and RAM upgrades to install. I'm excited but dreading it because of all the unknown wrinkles that inevitably come with any hardware or software upgrade.

[Reece]

@ Graf Paper, I hope you have better luck with your purchase, it really is pot luck that there is no problems, I used to have an Asus A7V600 that had SoundMAX and I think this had the same problem, I'm sure I went to Sound and Audio Devices Property in Device manager, selected Audio/Sound Playback, and changed the Default Device to a microsoft device instead of SoundMAX & that fixed it, but this setup only the SoundMAX setting.:-?
@ Danlisa, you may have hit the nail on the head, this new card is obviously 64bit & I use 32bit XP Pro, oh well I should get a bit back on ebay! It could be why I'm having problems with the onboard sound.

Others beware of installing 64bit devices while running a 32bit operating system.

Now all I have to do is find a 32bit sound card for the remaining PCI slot, this means I will have to move my video card (takes up 2 slots), but will have to extend the power leads! ..... what a pain!:lol::nope:

[Madox58]

I feel for you Reece.
Truely I do!!

Microsoft stopped supporting XP when they launched Vista.
Now?
They resumed support and released service packs.
Tells me all I need to know.
And I test stuff from time to time for them.

The manufacturers got caught in the crossfire I believe.
But any packageing should be clearly marked.

It's on them if they failed to do so.

Of course they can claim,
It was in small print on the package!
Didn't you read it?

To which I'd say,
I don't have the Hubble at my beck and call at the moment!!
:rotfl:

[SUBMAN1]

Sounds like you may have a bum motherboard man, or a mis-configured BIOS.

As for Vista only, you should check the CL website and download the drivers from there. Never use the supplied drivers that come on CD. They are buggy and out of date by the time you get them.

As for running multiple soundcards, that shouldn't be a problem either and it is 99% chance not causing your problems. XP and Vista both are designed to handle multiple audio devices.

Give me some more details if you don't mind. I might have a thought or two with more information.

-S

[kiwi_2005]

Hardware insanity!
I grabbed an old Sound Blaster live 5.1 i use to use in older pc she came out 2003, to replace the mobo's onboard sound. Works like a charm thats after many hours of trying to get it to install as i first thought the card was dead the OEM sound card software would come up with an error "No sound card found, please make sure card is installed" Well its installed i know cause i was looking right at it at the time having the case open. Cards dead? Or maybe mobos PCI slots are buggered? I tried all 4 of them only to get the same message in windows. Now any right minded person would of thrown out the card by now this is after turning pc off trying another slot go back into windows try to install only to get 'No sound card found' error. Why go on. Cause i hated my onboard sound with a passion i was going to make this card work if it took me friggin days!:roll: The card is not dead, i kept telling myself. All onboard drivers were uninstalled, the cards been sitting in its static bag in a draw so its hardly been handle. This card is NOT dead! Stupid dumass windows messages!

Once i tried Safe mode the software found the card! :rock: Everything works, i now have my surround sound back using AudioHQ where you can adjust your sound quality.
Ive had it running for a few weeks all games work with this old card, had a slight problem with the Arma game i lost all sound when i started her up found out i had to download the creative DLL file 'OpenAL' all fixed once that was installed. The onboard sound was total rubbish it claims surround sound but i would always get it as normal speaker sound (2).

So Reese i know what your going through just dont give up I would say keep trying give safemode a try, but your cards is for 64bit OS and your running a 32bit. Not going to work. Another is needed. If you come across a Creative Sound Blaster 5.1 for $5 grab it! :D

[Reece]

First off a big thanks to all for your support!:up:
SUBMAN1 Said:
As for Vista only, you should check the CL website and download the drivers from there. Never use the supplied drivers that come on CD. They are buggy and out of date by the time you get them. The Creative support website has Vista drivers only that include XP 64 bit, no support whatsoever for 32 bit versions of XP.
@ Privateer, yes these things are sent to test us ..... I failed!!:lol:
@ kiwi_2005, I have never tried installing in safe mode, thought it was impossable, was originally going to purchase a standard PCI SB card but no spare slots unless I moved my double slot video card but then the power lead to the card would be too short, it amazes me how power supply leads are either too short or too long!!:yep:

Now for some good news:
After more checking on various forums I found a fix, downloaded a X-fi Xtreme notebook driver, extracted the files from the exe & there is a winxp_2k folder, so I manually installed the card, and although the sound audio device points to an "SB Xtreme Audio Notebook" the driver installed without a hitch and works!!:yep:
Most of all SHIII works with full acceleration and no stutters etc ... Yay!!!:D:D:D

Many thanks again to all.:yep:
A special thanks to Subman1 & Wolfhunter for PM-ing me with continued support, I appreciate it.:up:

[SUBMAN1]

Just for the fun, I went looking for the driver. You are right! There is no Xp driver! That is just plain dumb!

-S

[Wildhawke11]

Reese
I am so glad its sorted because in the past you have helped me out many times just as others have on here. I am a totally dummy when it comes to hardware and the like so i was useless to you on this one. I hope to be getting another computer myself soon and will be asking advice myself about keeping windows xp home edition 32 which i know pretty well, or getting the 32 bit edition of Vista, as well as a few more things such as sound card choice etc etc. But i will start a new thread for that one Reese.
Again pleased to hear its sorted buddy.

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Why are you still at XP, Reece? :hmm:

[SUBMAN1]

Why are you still at XP, Reece? :hmm:Because he's smart!

Only other option is Linux until Windows 7 comes out.

-S

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Why are you still at XP, Reece? :hmm:Because he's smart!

Only other option is Linux until Windows 7 comes out.

-S

I'm sorry but I beg the differ!

I used to think Vista sucked, but since I installed Vista 64 Ultimate on my machine, it's impressing me everyday. Everything works, everygame works, nothing crashes, it's bloody fast, didn't get any error on windows or any software so far, didn't get any virus after 4 months of downloading the hell of internet crap, and I don't have any anti-virus. Vista just blocks any threat all by itself. Didn't have to install any drivers, Vista does it all alone. Once I plug something new, it goes in the internet and install the most recent driver without even asking me. I can't complain about anything.

Of course that I've only used the 64 bit version, so I can't speak for the 32 bit.

[Reece]

Sorry Philipp but at the moment I agree with Subman1, 2 friends of mine here locally tried hard to make the switch to Vista, one trying to impress me, both have gone back to XP, also the cost to purchase is disgusting, there is an old saying "If it aint broke, don't fix it", maybe after another patch or as Subman1 pointed out, version 7, I might give a thought to spending the money and upgrading, but for now Vista is a resource hog and runs no better, looks nice though!:yep: That's my 2 cents!:roll:
Thanks for the Comments Wildhawke.:yep:

[SUBMAN1]

I'm sorry but I beg the differ!

I used to think Vista sucked, but since I installed Vista 64 Ultimate on my machine, it's impressing me everyday. Everything works, everygame works, nothing crashes, it's bloody fast, didn't get any error on windows or any software so far, didn't get any virus after 4 months of downloading the hell of internet crap, and I don't have any anti-virus. Vista just blocks any threat all by itself. Didn't have to install any drivers, Vista does it all alone. Once I plug something new, it goes in the internet and install the most recent driver without even asking me. I can't complain about anything.

Of course that I've only used the 64 bit version, so I can't speak for the 32 bit.What did you do to screw up your XP? I leave mine running for a month or two at a time with no problems.

I'm still trying to figure out the reasoning for 64 bit Vista too. The only reason to go to 64 bit in XP is to get access to more memory for the system, but in Vista 32 bit, there is not a maximum memory limitation, only an artificial one where they will assign a maximum of 3.12GB per application to maintain compatibility. They fixed it you might say.

So now it is not even clear if one should move to 64 bit Vista since there are a ton of driver issues, and many freeware apps (such as those that make virtual host adapters or install software print drivers for example) will never be able to run on it due to Microsoft not allowing any un-tested driver on the system as a way to create more revenue and to make sure you don't circumvent their DRM. Nice huh? If it's not WHQL certified, no dice.

Last is speed. You take a 20% hit in performance, even worse in 64-bit by the way since it has to translate all your apps to 32 bit, just for using Vista. 64 bit apps - no speed diff either for the 2 that exist. oh neat!

And did I mention the DRM? Sneeze at your system and it will lock you out of it.

So what is it that you really got there? An overbloated XP is what you really have. XP does everything quicker with less overhead.

I guess you can say you have glass, but if you really like Aero, you can add that to XP too - people have ported it.

DirectX 10? I can't tell the difference in the pixel shaders. Can you? The only thing I saw is the reduced performance.

I downgraded my laptop from Vista Ultimate back to XP Pro (the only machine in the house that was running it - everything else is either Linux or XP Pro/MCE2005). Done with Vista. The only thing I could find that was useful on Vista is that it could format and add a master boot record to a USB flash drive. Since my USB key is bootable now, I no longer have a need for Vista. I get it free, and I don't even want it when its free.

I could go on, but you get the idea that I have not been impressed by anything Vista has to offer, let alone all the support i had to deal with on it for things not working right. You may never get into that, but lets just say its slightly broken under the hood in my opinion. I only deal with servers now anyway though, so good riddance.

-S

[Hanomag]

I don't have the Hubble at my beck and call at the moment!!
:rotfl:


You don't?? Well then you won't mind if I use it to spot the new soon to be released 67 ton merchants. :yep:

[Reece]

Hows this, instructions to installing SH3 on Vista:

1. Unistall Silent Hunter III
2. Delete the residual Silent Hunter III installation folder and all contents
3. Delete (or at least rename) your “MyDocuments\SH3” save game folder
4. Delete the “C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Pr ogram Files\SilentHunterIII”
folder and all its contents, if it exists.
5. Reinstall Silent Hunter III. The GWX Team recommends you install it outside of the “\Program
Files” folder
6. Right-click the 1.4b patch “.exe” file and select “Run as administrator”
7. Install the patch
8. Verify you installed the patch correctly by running the game.
9. If the game fails to run, download and install the StarForce Vista update from the StarForce
developers’ site: http://www.star-force.com/support/sfdrvup.zip.
10. You can now run optional tools like SH3 Commander, JSGME, SH3Gen, etc. provided you run
them as an “Administrator” after you have installed them.
For some reason XP looks really good!!:rotfl:

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Well, for starters, I can compile a video in 2 minutes in vista 64, and the same video takes me 15 minutes in xp.

I can compress and decompress 5gb of information in less then one minute with vista 64, and with xp it takes around 7 minutes.

Some games already uses the performance of the 64 bits, and let me tell you, they look bloody fantastic. The amount of new stuff you can have in games due to 64 bit processing is substantially increased.

Besides, my 5.1 audio doesn't work with xp.

But yeah, it does consume more resources then xp. If you want your computer for basic stuff, such as internet and text editor, xp is a lot better.

Problem is that I have 4gb of ram, plus 512mb video, so If I had xp, I would have around 3gb of ram.

The cruel and undeniable truth is that vista is the future, everybody will have to upgrade one day. I prefer to get used to the new software rather sooner then later.

But hey, that just me.

:up:

[Philipp_Thomsen]

Hows this, instructions to installing SH3 on Vista:

1. Unistall Silent Hunter III
2. Delete the residual Silent Hunter III installation folder and all contents
3. Delete (or at least rename) your “MyDocuments\SH3” save game folder
4. Delete the “C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Pr ogram Files\SilentHunterIII”
folder and all its contents, if it exists.
5. Reinstall Silent Hunter III. The GWX Team recommends you install it outside of the “\Program
Files” folder
6. Right-click the 1.4b patch “.exe” file and select “Run as administrator”
7. Install the patch
8. Verify you installed the patch correctly by running the game.
9. If the game fails to run, download and install the StarForce Vista update from the StarForce
developers’ site: http://www.star-force.com/support/sfdrvup.zip.
10. You can now run optional tools like SH3 Commander, JSGME, SH3Gen, etc. provided you run
them as an “Administrator” after you have installed them.
For some reason XP looks really good!!:rotfl:

I didn't have any problems with installing/running sh3. All of my games I just installed thinking that vista and xp were the same thing when it comes to software. No game refused to run or to install, and to be honest, no game crashed so far, while a lot of games crashed when I had vista.

But then again, I always had a separated partition for games, so it might be the solution.

[Philipp_Thomsen]

I used to say the hell about Vista before I tried it.

I used to say: "I will never install that piece of sh!t. XP is hundreds of times better, faster and don't have all that gay visual, I'm sticking with it!"

But after I got the new computer, I had to install vista, otherwise I would lose 1gb of ram and my sound card wouldn't work with it. I was pissed of, but I didn't have any alternatives. So I went ahead and installed vista. And I was ready to be disappointed.

So I put the dvd on the drive to install the operational system and went to the kitchen to prepare some food. When I got back, my computer was on the desktop, already connected to the internet.

I kept staring at the screen like this :o for half a minute, trying to understand. All my hardware installed, my internet installed and conected, beautiful desktop wallpaper, the whole shabang!

Since then, I'm in love with vista. There's absolutly NOTHING I could complain about, and absolutly NO REASON for me to think XP is better, I have no reason to go back.

But then again, I used to say the hell about vista back then... :lol:

[Philipp_Thomsen]

By the way...

Vista 32 bits SUCKS!

Sucks badly!
:up:

[Digital_Trucker]

By the way...

Vista 32 bits SUCKS!

Sucks badly!
:up:

BTW, were your above comparisons between Vista 64 bit and XP 32 bit?

[Philipp_Thomsen]

By the way...

Vista 32 bits SUCKS!

Sucks badly!
:up:

BTW, were your above comparisons between Vista 64 bit and XP 32 bit?

XP 64 bits is the worst operational system ever built.

And yeah, I know what you mean, my bad... :oops:


:lol:

[Digital_Trucker]

XP 64 bits is the worst operational system ever built.

And yeah, I know what you mean, my bad... :oops:


:lol:

I was just checking to make sure I knew what was being compared to what.:D I've yet to try XP 64 bit, my 32 bit is doing just fine by me. I didn't know either if there was much of a performance difference between the two.