sound card?

hi there

what is a sound card and how do i no if ive got 1 or need 1 better one as i put a recent post on due to my speakers stop working properly so ive now replaced them with new ones and they sound exactly the same am wondering if maybe my pc isant good enough for the quialty of the speakers but it isant that old the pc.so maybe i need to update the sound card if ive got one! how would i check etc

kayla

 

You would not be hearing much sound difference due to sound card until you are an audiophile and have extremely good hearing.

Speakers make much of a difference. What make of speakers are you using right now? What's the source you are listening to ? If you are listening to MP3's, then even the best and most speakers and sound card in the world can make only so much difference.

 

If your sound is crackly or has loud popping with your audio the only way I know how to correct that is move your windows volume to just less than 50%. It seems that if you have powered speakers and the windows volume is above 50% you can hear feedback, cracking, static, and loud popping.

 

well whats happened is the sound is really echoy but when i 1st got the speakers they sounded brillant then they went like this so i thought maybe the speakers had broke so got a new pai the same ones but they sound the same i cant figuyre out why its suddenly changed

 

Sound Blaster cards have a feature where you can select different environments such as hall, concert, bathroom etc. Each of these makes your PC sound different and some of them are quite heavy on the reverb and will make it have an echo. If you select none, there's no sound enhancement.

It almost sounds to me like your problem could be due to something like this. I don't remember exactly where the setting is as I use the drivers that come with windows for mine and they don't have that feature. We'd need to know what kind of sound card or at least the computer brand and model though to explore this farther.

 

i am on windows xp professional if thats any help and just use windows media player to play my music.

 

I dont have XP Pro but look in the device manager under sound video and
game controllers. That might tell you what kind of sound card you have.

 

First, we need to try to establish what kind of sound card you have. Try this:

First go to the start button, then click on "Run ".

This will open a small dialog box. In the box, type "devmgmt.msc" without the quotes, then press ok. A new window will pop up. This is the Device Manager.

On this page, you will see your computer name and a small plus sign next to a picture of a computer. Click the plus sign next to your computer name to expand the view, if it is not already expanded.

This will now give you a list of devices installed on your computer. Look down the list, and scroll if necessary, until you see an icon of a speaker with a plus sign next to it labled "Sound, video, and game controllers ". Click the plus sign next to this to expand the view.

Now that we have expanded "Sound, video, and game controllers ", there should be a list of devices on the system. If you post the contents of the list, we will probably be able to ID your sound device, and help you troubleshoot further!

Hope this helps,
Mike

 

hi mike thats brillant ive gone threw all the options yopu advised and here is what is listed in that list.
audio codecs
legacy audio drivers
legacy audio capture devices
media control devices
mpu-401 compatible midi devices
sis 7018 audio driver
standard game port
uni-modem half-duplex audio devices
vidoe codecs

thankyou for your help

 

There you are. You have a SIS 7018 based sound card. First check for any driver updates (try googling) before forking out cash.

 

I did some searching, and it looks like the newest driver for the 7018 Sound Device (which looks to be onboard) is v1.19.

Here is a download link directly from SIS's website for the newest driver:
http://www.sis.com/download/download_step2.php?id=38061&country=USA&ftp=driver

It comes as a ZIP file, so you have to extract it to a directory, and then run the setup.exe inside the directory you extracted it to. This should walk you through updating the driver to the newest version. After the install, it will prompt you to restart your computer. Do so, and then when you are back in windows, play some music or sound to see if the problem persists.

This may or may not fix your problem, but it does seem to me like a driver issue since the sound used to work fine. If this did not help any, we just need to keep trying different things until we get it working .

Hope this helps,
Mike

 

hi
thankyou but i got stuck along the way! i downloaded it ok then it went to the winzip thing so i extracted it like you said i sent it to my computer then i couldnt figure out how to run the set up? i went into my computer and right clicked on that file but couldnt see how to run the set up!

sori!! ???

 

Ok, assuming you have the same version of winzip that I do, the easiest way to extract and run the file is as follows:

Download the zip file to the desktop.

Right click on the file after it is finished downloading, and select the option "Extract to folder C:\Doc...\XXX...\Des...\7018_119 "
The "XXX" will be the name of the current user, but dont worry about that.

Now, winzip should have automatically created a folder on your desktop called "7018_119 ". Open that folder, and within it shoudl be another folder named "7018_119 ". Open that.

You should now be within a folder with multiple other folders and files in it. Scroll down in this folder until you find an icon with a computer with a box of software next to it, with the filename "SETUP ". This is the .exe file that will start installing the drivers.

Double click on the "SETUP" file, and follow the onscreen instructions. At the end, it should tell you to restart your computer. After that, test an audio file and tell us if it is any better or not!

Hope this helps,
Mike

 

thanks!

hello mike

THANKS ive done it somehow! and they are working how they should be thankyou so much

kayla x x x

 

It's no problem, I am glad that I could help, and glad to hear that you finally have your sound back!