Sound card facts please

[Takmadeus]

well..... I am planning to get a new sound card as my stepfather gave me 100.000 Colombian pesos (1 USD= 3000 pesos) so, I have 50.000 left (spent the rest on an electric toothbrush, a new keyboard and some PSX games) anyway, have the choice of getting a genius soundcard (ver. 4.1) with a CM8738 chipset for now, or save for like 2 more months and get a 5.1 version...... so.... erm..... what can I do.... or which other options do I have; notice that a friend can lend me 20.000 pesos giving a total of 75.000.....

*PD: the 4.1 one costs 51.000

[KillerShots]

In my opinion, if you go for anything that doesn't say "sound blaster" on it, you're probably going to miss out. A SBLive! 5.1 is only $35 USD now... (I guess from the above conversion that that would be 105000 pesos). That seems out of range, didn't realize that before wow... um... what's your old board?

Really, the only recent competitor to SB was Aureal-based boards, and that was years back (they died). Alternatively, make sure it's DX compatable, reputable brand (I've never heard of genius), and as a bonus has an emu10k1 or better chipset.

[Katsuya]

Well you want to get a sound card with hardware acceleration (not all of them support it) or at least hardware Direct Sound. As for which one you should get. It depends on how many speakers you have or want to get. The 4.1 is fine if you just have 2 speakers (but if you want get a 4.1 setup for cheep) but the 5.1 will give you better sound quality (but only with Dolby 5.1 speakers) if you just have two speakers then get the 4.1

[Takmadeus]

thanks guys.... actually I just have my pair of speakers.... and currently I got a Sis 7018 card (the crappiest card ever?) I'll get the 4.1 then, as I just want a sound card that accelerates by hardware, so I can use more processing power.... besides, I have no room for other pair of speakers... and I don't need it right now...... thank you, you both were a lot of help

[Katsuya]

Delighted to help. Any time

[Takmadeus]

Well..... I got a slight problem..... just today's night I bought a sound card (an encore sound card with a 4 channel crystalk chipset..... enough to free some processing power.....) now, I don't have anywhere to connect it, why?.... because my board has only 2 pci ports and an AGP port.... no more, no less.... in the pci ports, I have both my TV card (Kworld tv-rf878) and my modem (encore again, with an intel chipset)

now, I have to deal with this: I have to sacrifice one of them..... with the TV card I record most shows and it has been really helpful; with the modem, I can connect and do lots of things on linux (well, I can only connect, but that's enough, taking in account that it IS linux), my brother got another intel modem on his PC, so the best bet would be to take out the TV card and send it to him (as he has a free slot) but then he tells me he is planning to buy a sound card; it seems that he will not buy it from me, and I believe there are no returns in the store I bought it from...... I have been thiking about getting rid of the TV card and then just use it when I need to; but I really don't know..... someone told me that if I took out a hardware piece and stored it away, it could get damaged..... which I don't want to happen; is it true?.... if not, I have the original packages and all.... so I really need your help

[KillerShots]

Taking something out and storing it is generally not a problem... what is a problem is continually inserting/removing cards from a slot. Generally, you stick a card in the slot and it stays there, nice and happy. Occasionally, you may put another card in there and it would stay there and be happy. If you are swapping cards out even once a week, I don't think your system would last very long (give it a few months).

It sounds like you are using maybe an ECS Elitegroup motherboard... (I haven't seen many others with only 2 PCI slots and one AGP slot, but I could easily be wrong) Does it have built-in ethernet? Most of the boards that are that stripped down in slots get away with it by having everything built in. Also, is the linux machine in the house? If so, you can probably use the built-in ethernet (if it's there) to connect instead of the modem.

Unfortunately, that's a lot of if's and I really don't know what your situation is... Sorry about the situation

[Galway no Sora]

Removing and attaching the card in some periodic time will slightly damage the slot. I've done it with my AGP slot, and I need to returned it to the shop. I have no solution for this, sorry takmadeus. I think buying new mobo isn't a wise solution. Perhaps you can deal with your brother [beg him to buy yours ] ???

[Takmadeus]

> Killershots: well.... my mobo is a crappy one, with everything (and I mean, everything!) built in..... it is a M810 (?) that's all I really know for now.... now, as for the internet connection..... well, I don't know how to connect to the interenet using the ethernet card instead of the modem..... is there any special connector that would allow me to connect the ethernet card to the phone line?.... of so, how is it called?, which is its reference?... because I need to get one of those.....

>Galway no Sora: thanks for the help.... now, why do you say that buying another mobo (like a thunderbird if I am right) is not a good idea.... taking in account that I could just move everything from my crappy one to the new one, plus having extra PCI slots..... and as for my brother, well, it seems that he won't buy me the sound card...... (he is a little weird)

thanks for the help guys.... the results are that I removed the TV card, and plugged in the sound card..... now that's good sound.... I gotta save some more money and buy another pair of speakers (maybe a good genius ones)

[Galway no Sora]

Well, I just picking from your first post that you only got 50.000 pesos left and used it for soundcard. Buying new mobo will cost you another pesos.

thunderbird is an AMD processor .

Well, if you've got enough money then go for new mobo, that would be your best solution. Afterall, this cost more money . And if you happy with the current situation, its OK. About your brother, then just do what you think best, buy genius speaker is one of those idea IMO .

[Takmadeus]

>Well, I just picking from your first post that you only got 50.000 pesos left and used it for soundcard. Buying new mobo will cost you another pesos.

yep.... that's right.... but I can try my luick fixing PCs in order to get enough (but it will be a while until I get enough )

>thunderbird is an AMD processor

heh.... I did not know..... I thought it was the best board for an AMD

>About your brother, then just do what you think best, buy genius speaker is one of those idea IMO

yep.... I guess I have to save a little more to get those

Anyway.... i guess I got another slight prob..... well, it seems that the new sound card blocked my old card gameport.... so the only chance I got to use it is to connect my gamepad in the new port..... but I just found that my gamepad (a really generic and crappy one) isn't working properly, so i don't know if it is due to the new port or if it is really damaged...... is there a way to "wrap" the controller to test if it is due to the port?

[n_w95482]

Originally Posted by takmadeus

well.... my mobo is a crappy one, with everything (and I mean, everything!) built in..... it is a M810 (?) that's all I really know for now....

Sounds like a PC Chips motherboard. My dad's comp has one (I think a M812) and mine does too (M598). Both of them don't have agp slots but they have 3 pci slots (and my dad's has one of those special modem slots). Every PC Chips mboard that I have seen uses SiS chipsets and I think my dad's has the 7018 chipset. Mine has the SiS 530 chipset for video and the SiS 5595 (or 5598, can't remember) for the main chip (I think northbridge) and a c-media 8338 chip for sound (very crappy). As for the pci slot shortage, I would take out the tv card but if you hardly use your modem then you could take that out and use another comp for the internet. I haven't heard of a ethernet->modem adapter before. You could get a old ati all in wonder agp card and use that as a tv card instead. If your mboard has one of the special modem slots then you can get a different modem so the pci slot will be freed up. As for the gameport problem, have you tried getting updated drivers for your card? If you have any ISA slots you could get an ISA modem. My mom's comp has a 56k ISA modem and it works really well.

edit: I just went to the PC Chips website and they had 8 different mboards with the M810 number/model name. Here is the list:

M810CDLU V 5.2 C
M810CLR V7.1
M810DLU V 5.2A
M810DLU V 7.5C
M810DLU V 7.5A
M810L V 9.0M
M810LR-XP V 7.1A
M810LR V 8.0

A little but I thought I would share this. A motherboard that supports both slot-1 and socket 370 processors without an adapter card.

[KillerShots]

If you want to use ethernet and you're on the phone lines, you can't really hook the ethernet to the phone line (oops, my bad. I assumed you had broadband). However, there is still another solution! Get yourself a long crossover cable (google it for more info) and hook it up to another nearby machine (with a modem attached). Tell that machine to share its internet connection (look up ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) if you're running windows or linux). If this route seems feasible, I can provide more info, but that's a good very high-level description of what would need to happen.

[Galway no Sora]

Your gamepad attached to soundcard port or printer port? I use PSX Dpad pro gamepad, and that attached to printer port, I have no problem with that. FYI, I use onboard soundcard. I ever tried my friends SB live and disabled the onboard soundcard, I still can use that gamepad as well. I don't know how exactly to fix that problem. Have you test it without soundcard attached ?

[Takmadeus]

>If you want to use ethernet and you're on the phone lines, you can't really hook the ethernet to the phone line (oops, my bad. I assumed you had broadband). However, there is still another solution! Get yourself a long crossover cable (google it for more info) and hook it up to another nearby machine (with a modem attached). Tell that machine to share its internet connection (look up ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) if you're running windows or linux). If this route seems feasible, I can provide more info, but that's a good very high-level description of what would need to happen.

No point on doing so, as it would be almost the same as using my modem

>Your gamepad attached to soundcard port or printer port? I use PSX Dpad pro gamepad, and that attached to printer port, I have no problem with that. FYI, I use onboard soundcard. I ever tried my friends SB live and disabled the onboard soundcard, I still can use that gamepad as well. I don't know how exactly to fix that problem. Have you test it without soundcard attached ?

Well... my sound card disabled the onboard gameport, and I am kind of lazy as to unplug the sound card again so I'll ask a friend to let me test the controller on his PC, so, if it still works weird, then it is the controller, if not, then it is the sound card....

[Kazuya Mishima]

My audigy automatically disabled my game port and forced me to use the audigy's one. Even if i have both (audigy and onboard) enabled i cant use the first gameport. The things that happen in life....

[wolfmaster]

this is a disarter I think there was a converter for a gamepad that would let u put it in LTP etc..

[KillerShots]

Which windows are you running? Win98 will allow both gameports to be active, but you need to assign your controller's ID to the first available for most games to detect and use it. Windows XP dropped that particular setting (maybe it's automated? Dono). If you're on Win98, go into controller settings in control panel and click on the "other" tab (I don't remember what it's called), it will list all controllers connected. You can click on one and then raise/lower its ID on that page. Of course if you don't see it, that's another problem altogether.

[Takmadeus]

>My audigy automatically disabled my game port and forced me to use the audigy's one. Even if i have both (audigy and onboard) enabled i cant use the first gameport. The things that happen in life....

yep same here

>this is a disarter I think there was a converter for a gamepad that would let u put it in LTP etc..

why would you do that?..... LPT is slower for gamepads than the gameport

>Which windows are you running? Win98 will allow both gameports to be active, but you need to assign your controller's ID to the first available for most games to detect and use it. Windows XP dropped that particular setting (maybe it's automated? Dono). If you're on Win98, go into controller settings in control panel and click on the "other" tab (I don't remember what it's called), it will list all controllers connected. You can click on one and then raise/lower its ID on that page. Of course if you don't see it, that's another problem altogether.

I am using a tetra boot:

WinXP / Linux / Win2000 / FreeBSD

[Exophase]

Does anyone else find it weird that he's supposedely able to buy a sound card with (according to his conversion rate) the equivilent of 1.7 US cents? I think I need to go to Columbia sometime to do some shopping...

EDIT: Didn't realize that the period was used a seperator, not as a decimal point. Thanks Keith ;D

- Exo