Dump my SB Live! 5.1 ?

[Furius92]

It's been giving me nothing but problems. Some of you may have seen my thread before about looking for ksusers.dll. Well, I did NOT fix the problem. I get crackly sound now, again. I bought it OEM so the warranty is long gone. I just can't get it functioning properly, now I can't even install/update drivers properly. I have errors installing files, it still can't find ksusers.dll.

I am thinking of saying forget it, and picking up a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card. I plan on calling Creative some time next week, maybe Monday or Tuesday. I have done all of the following:

1. Reinstalled drivers and software from CD
2. Updated drivers from Creative website
3. Reseated card in same, and different PCI slots
4. Checked, rechecked, and rerechecked all speaker connections
5. Ensure that my speakers can play music from an alternate source
6. Ensured that the sound files I am using are not corrupted or damaged

Hell, the only think I haven't done is reformat. Oh, and take a look at my signature, this is certainly NOT a VIA chipset motherboard, and NOT a low quality motherboard. I'm all ears (I guess eyes to text) to any ideas that you might have. I think it's getting ridiculous, this is like at least the 5th time I've had trouble with it. Thanks

Edit: I am now also considering getting an Audigy OEM. Although I am tempted to stay away from Creative now, things like the Firewire port are nice. I plan on going to a computer store and listening to things, hopefully they have stuff set up for customers, since a sound card is such a subjective thing.

[TwoRails]

Hi Furius92,

Funny, I'm installing one of my old HDs into another system, and just this morning I made a backup copy of the sblive directory from the drive before I wiped it. Guess what? No *user*.* files found on it anywhere. Not only that, but I can't find it in my SB16, AWE32, AWE64, or Audigy backups. And, of course, you aready know I can't find it on the Web, either. Sorry, can't help on that one.

As far as reinstallation problems, I've had them several times. What it took, at least for me, was to go thru the Registry and hand groom it very carefully. I had to do many searches for each sub-program / applet and everything related to creative and delete all related keys. Then I ran Microsofts registry cleaner. Then the reinstall and driver updates worked fine. Be warned that from my experience, if any trace was left in the registry, I had to start over. After the cleaning process, then things worked normally.

HTH

TwoRails

[GaryRouth]

Hi Furius92

I'm with TwoRails on how difficult it is to find all the Creative files for uninstalling and reinstalling. . . It's not supposed to be a problem anymore with the uninstall logs that programs are theoretically using . . .

I'd probably remove the card altogether. Try the uninstall applet that Creative provided with the driver, and at the uninstalls completion, be sure to click on "Details" if it displays the message "some items need to be manually removed"...so you'll have some clues for tracking down the leftovers. From TwoRails post, it sounds like they might have a RegClean or RegMaid version available for XP by now.

Since you tried a few different PCI slots, when you put everything back in for a last-ditch chance at normal sound. . . it might be good to avoid the bottom slot (in the old days it wasn't a "master" slot ..and the P4T-E has a CNR on it, so perhaps it "shares" it ...though this is just a guess)

When you have the SB off the board, you might want to double check that not only is the onboard AC'97 disabled in the bios, but that also any trace of those drivers are uninstalled from XP as well.

And they are up to Bios revisions starting with 1006 for that motherboard, and an update might help.

I was browsing Adrian's famous Bios Optimization Guide again the other night, and the newer bios programs have quite a few PCI timing settings that we didn't use to see. Some settings there might help, too. His site is called "Adrian's Rojak Pot" and the guide is his "Bios Optimization Guide"....parts of the newest version are ready (ver 7) while the newest complete version is 6.5...

Good Luck
...Gary

(and if none of this works, I've heard good things about the Philips sound cards, too)

[GaryRouth]

Oops forgot to post the link to the home page for Adrian's guide:
http://www.rojakpot.com

...Gary

[p.s. ...thought of one more thing..since you were missing some files and getting various errors, it couldn't hurt to run sfc/scannow from the RUN box, just to make sure your XP files are all present and accounted for]

[TwoRails]

Hi Gary,

Nice link!

Is there a way to download the complete BIOS guide? I tried the link that sez PDF format, but got a regular Web page instead.

Thanks,

TwoRails

[GaryRouth]

Just double-checked the Bios Guide: looks like only 6.2 is available for download in one PDF file. It's on a mirror site:
http://homepage.mac.com/timrutter/BOG_PDF_6.2.zip

You can, however save a favorite page from the newer versions in html format (yes, only one page at a time) from the File menu of your browser
...Gary

[mwb1jr]

Yeah I had all kinds of trouble installing my sb Live card. The drivers from the website gave me nothing but problems. So when I installed, all of the files were scattered around the computer after extraction. So I opened a search window and searched my system for the missing files and in three days my card was working great. I love Windows XP, but installing new devices is really difficult to me. Windows 98, never had a problem. Creative Labs has really crappy technical support. It took them a week to respond to my email about my soundcard. If you want a great card and crappy support, go creative. If you want a great soundcard and awesome support, send it to me and I'll trade you for a soundblaster 16, I have 13 of them.

In closing, I finally got my card to work by using files specifically for the card and I "borrowed" some files from windows xp. I know it sounds wrong, but my card works now.

[TwoRails]

Thanks, Gary!

Maybe you're link should consider complete downloads of the newer version for a fee, like maybe $5 US. I'd buy it. I got the BIOS Companion this way. It might have been cheaper to buy the book, however, as it was about 500 pages and I printed it out (in draft mode).

TwoRails

[Alfie]

Uninstall all drivers for soundblaster,check the registry and see if there's any listing for soundblaster,creative,etc.remove card from system.
Try to get the soundblaster on irq 5,you may be able to do this in bios,by assigning irq 5 to the slot you plan to put the card in,make sure the slot isn't sharing.
Reinstall card,with XP cd in place,boot from cd.
After XP starts and finishes loading all of it's stuff,you should see a screen with repair,skip that,it's for the console,which can't help you here,instead click on install,this will give you the option to install or repair,choose repair.
XP will verify all hardware and will fix itself,(you'll need the product key)
Once this is done and you're back in windows,XP should detect new hardware,at this point install the latest drivers for the soundcard,if certified drivers are available,use these.
Before you start all this make sure on board audio is completely disabled in bios,comb through bios and double check.
Via fixed their problem with Creative,have you checked known issues?
HTH

[Charger]

I dumped Creative last year. My TBSC hasn't failed me yet. Easy install, easy User Interface Software, 6 speaker setup, virtual 5.1, etc....

BTW I STILL have "REM" marks on my Creative files in "Win.ini"...I can't get rid of them either. If you can't delete them, REM them!