newbie needs help on going from onboard audio to pci sound card audio

Xenos · January 21st, 2002, 05:36 PM

Hello. After playing many games of Unreal Tournament on low settings to troublshoot a problem, I have finally decided that it seems my onboard sound VIA AC'97 was slowing stuff down. So, I bought a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card. I just want to make sure I am correct when getting my computer ready for the soundcard since this is a first for me. Here are my specs:
AMD Athalon 1 GIG CPU

ASUS A7V133 Socket A motheboard w/ KT133A Chipset

VIA AC'97 Audio controller
VIA 4in1Drivers 436
GeForce 2 MX 400 64MB
512 Megs of RAM

Windows 98SE

I have the mobo manual out and this is what I interpret:

1. Change the jumpers to the disable postion on my mobo

2. Go in my BIOS and disable Onboard AC'97 Audio Controller setting. Should I also disable sound blaster emulation as well?

Ok, that seems pretty straighforward. Now after I do that, do I remove my AC'97 via audio controller from device manager?

Then, i shut down and put in the sound card and start it up and install the drivers?

I am not sure of the order to do this whole procedure in so if someone can help me I would greatly appreciate it.

uethello · January 21st, 2002, 05:39 PM

I never messed with the jumpers, just went into the BIOS and set all the onboard sound options to off and hooked up my SB. No problems yet.

Xenos · January 21st, 2002, 05:44 PM

Oh I am new at this and that's what it said in the mobo. Should I also connect my cd rom to my sound card instead of having connected to my mobo like it already is?

newbie~wan · January 21st, 2002, 05:50 PM

What do the directions that came w/ your sound card say? Or is it OEM?

I'm gonna have to say yes, where the cd-rom used to plug into the board, there will be same pin setup on the sound card. Thats been the case w/ every sound card i've seen.

Xenos · January 21st, 2002, 05:55 PM

I won't get the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card until this Tuesday. I am just getting info on how to prepare my computer for it. I have never gotten a sound card before, only used onboard sound. Do you all think that a pci sound card will eliminate slowdown and make things overall smoother instead of onboard sound? I have onboard sound and Unreal Tournament seems to degrade in performance on low settings! It seems to happen when a lot of guns shots...sounds going on etc... I hope PCI sound cards make First person shooters more enjoyable.

**Whir** · January 21st, 2002, 06:04 PM

The Santa Cruz will definitely tax your CPU a lot less than onboard sound controllers do.

What I would do:

Flip the jumper to disable the onboard sound controller.

On boot up, head into the BIOS and disable the soundcard through there also, if it even gives you the option to do so after you've disabled it in the hardware itself. Disable the soundblaster emulation if that's still doable also.

Boot the machine into Windows. And remove the soundcard for your Device Manager list. Reboot the machine back into Windows, just to make sure it's good and gone. Check.

Shut the machine off, put the SC in. Connect the cable from your CD-ROM to the new card, definitely.

Boot the machine and install the Santa Cruz's software to install the drivers and tweak stuff it's got bundled. You'll most likely have to reboot again after that.

After you reboot, you should have a fully functioning soundcard.

I'm no expert, obviously, but I doubt that the onboard sound is slowing you down all THAT much. But the SC is a better sound card regardless.

Remember, if you have any problems, you can always come back and pick the community brain some.

-Whir

uethello · January 21st, 2002, 07:21 PM

Have to agree with Whir, if you're not sure about it, setting the sound off with a hardware switch will calm your worries. I was just going the easy route. So, now the only question is what speakers to hook up.

Xeroid · January 22nd, 2002, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Xenos
Oh I am new at this and that's what it said in the mobo. Should I also connect my cd rom to my sound card instead of having connected to my mobo like it already is?

That's correct. If you want to play an audio cd in your p.c. then you should move the audio cable from your mobo connector to your new sound card. There should be a plug on your sound card labled something like CD Audio Connector.

You should see a great improvement in audio quality also. I tried using the AC97 sound on my new mobo (EpOX 8KHA+) and ended up pulling my Creative Labs PCI128 sound card out of my old system. The PCI128 is not a great card, but, there was a very noticable difference in sound quality. With a nice card like the Santa Cruz the difference should be astounding.

Mike

Xenos · January 22nd, 2002, 07:36 PM

I did what you all suggested. Well, the soundcard drivers got installed. But a few things happened that kinda worry me. After I set the jumpers on my mobo to disable and went into my bios to disabled onboard audio controller, I rebooted to go into windows. Well, I got this looping pattern, I would reboot, windows 98 splash on screen, then bam..a reboot windows 98 splash on screen, etc. I had to boot into safe mode, its the only option it gave me. I uninstalled my ac 97 audio controller there and shut down. Put my sound card in and still got the looping effect. Shut down again, pushed in real hard on the soundcard and tried again. I finally got to the desktop screen. I assuming i got that problem due to a loose soundcard. I also notice when i boot up it says via legacy not enabled or something like that,,,should I just ignore that since I have a soundcard? I hope that doesnt effect anything else.

January 22nd, 2002, 07:50 PM

Quote:

I also notice when i boot up it says via legacy not enabled or something like that,,,

The EPOX BIOS has a setting somewhere to turn on the legacy support for Soundblaster in DOS, which loads some stuff before windows loads into the startup file. Check the manual - I'm not with my EPOX board, but it's somewhere in the BIOS.

I think if you reset this itautomatically comments it out in the startup file. If it doesn't, you'll need to do this yourself. Let us know and we can help walk you through it.

BTW it won't do any damage at all if you leave it there because nothing is being loaded 'cause it can't find the device. You'll just see that annoying line everytime you start the PC.

Also, welcome to TechIMO!