Sound blaster Live! Value card - no sound

goldenhound104 · 03 Feb 2015

Done the research, and unless I've missed something, there's a caveat that hasn't been addressed in this issue.

I have an SB Live! value card, have installed the Daniel_K driver for it, following the suggestions about deleting the existing RealTek (which didn't seem to work, though I didn't put *any* time into why that didn't work), and scrubbing the system with the recommended driver scrubber - can't remember the name but it was recommended in an earlier post.

I *record* with the SB Live! value card because of the low-noise, and rock-bottom price that these are now available for. On-board sound has terrible noise floor issues. They all do. I occasionally play games with the analog joystick, and attach to the midi port to back up my Roland VG-8 guitar fx box. The card is fully utilized in my system, so I don't want to switch to the on-board garbage.

So, back to the problem. The Daniel_K drivers installed well, BUT, though I see the VU meter in the system tray responding on playback (i.e,, it jumps around indicating that Windows is trying to send the signal to the card), I get no sound out of the speakers. I've tried headphones with no joy. I've also tried the KX drivers (nice effort btw, but no midi, or joystick drivers with the KX stuff), with the same result. No sound from the card.

No IRQ conflicts, no DMA issues, etc. I've tried it in the only other slot on the mobo.

BTW, mobo is new, and uses the AMD SB710 southbridge. Does that Southbridge just not pass sound, or? Card works on my dual-boot XP, so I know its good.

Suggestions? Anyone seen this particular wrinkle before?

Thanks in advance!

fireberd · 03 Feb 2015

Most new motherboards only have a "bridged" PCI slot to the PCIe bus. Many PCI cards will not work or work properly with the bridged PCI slot. There are many posts about this on the recording forums.

goldenhound104 · 04 Feb 2015

Thanks for your reply, Fireberd. I don't understand what is meant by a "bridged" pci slot to the PCIe slot. Can you give me more detail? Are you saying that the PCI services for the two PCI slots I have are somehow connected to the PCIe? What does that mean in English?

Any idea how I can find out for sure if the asrock 960gc-gs fx uses a bridged pci slot?

fireberd · 04 Feb 2015

The PCI slots are not true PCI slots in "bridged" applications. They do not have a separate PCI bus, they are connected ("bridged") to the PCIe bus.

The specs that I looked at do not say how the PCI slots work.

I have a recording studio (I use Sonar) and a separate USB connected recording interface unit will work much better, both in Signal to Noise and latency. Even an inexpensive interface will be better than an PC sound card.

Here is an example of a low cost unit.
Lexicon Alpha USB Desktop Recording Studio | Musician's Friend

goldenhound104 · 04 Feb 2015

Thanks Fireberd for the excellent link to the Alpha usb recording interface.

Of course, all I want to do is belly-ache about how much more complicated and expensive it is now to do things separately than it used to be with one card. The SB Live! value card has a very good noise floor, midi-capable, which enabled me to hook up a midi keyboard, and upload/download my Roland VG-8 patches, analog joystick that I use for rudder pedals as well as the joystick for European Air War / Flight Simulator 2004.

It's the nature of technology to make people go out and buy replacements for everything that has been working reliably for years, sometimes decades.

The Technology Sauron - One card to do it all...and in the darkness bind them?