sound device wars

avianchaos · 24th June 2006

I recently got a new motherboard, the ASUS M2NPV-VM, which has onboard sound. I happen to like the software features that my old 7.1 24bit soundblaster live has (like being able to play sterio sound out of all the speakers, and being able to balance the volume between front and back). I disabled the onboard sound in the bios, and windows detects the "Multimedia audio controller" in the unknown other devices section of the device manager. The soundblaster drivers claim that i dont have a soundblaster device, which i know i do. I would try to put it in another pci slot, however this motherboard has only 2, and the other one is taken up by my 7600gt (it's so big that it fills both the pci-e slot and the one below it). I have looked through many forums and there are a few people that have the same problem, but the only responses I have seen are "buy a new soundcard" or "give up and use the onboard one". The motherboard also does not have a jumper to disable the device - only the bios option.

So yeah...does anyone have any helpful suggestions that dont require having to buy more hardware?

**mattman** · 25th June 2006

Hi and welcome to the BBS,

In the BIOS settings, find the setting "Play and Play OS" and set it to No or Disabled. That should let Windows take control of setting the resources. You will probably need to uninstall the Multimedia Audio Device. When you reboot, the Add Hardware wizard should run at bootup, see if you can direct it to drivers on the Soundblaster CD, or maybe use the "let me select the device" radio button, see if your model appears in the list, but even if it doesn't, highlight any Creative/Soundblaster device and click the Have Disk button. Browse to the drivers CD, but you may need to direct it to sub-folders. I know Creative have a non-standard driver installation, so you can only try.

Have you looked for any FAQs at the Soundblaster website?

After that, if you think it may be the resouce settings problem, you MAY be able to change the resouces set for the first PCI slot for the resouces of the second PCI slot in the BIOS settings. I have had limited experience trying things like this and it was on older computers. I would find it challenging, but you may not. If you want to try, just keep in mind that the graphics card slot may be termed a PCI slot. If anything goes wrong while changing settings in the BIOS, look up the manual and use the Clear CMOS jumper.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314068/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283658/en-us
Note that if you change resources you may have to reinstall.

Matt
Edit: Check if there are any jumpers on the soundcard. You may be able to change the resources that way. You will need the soundcard's manual to describe the jumpers.