Soundcards.

[Woodlouse2002]

Well today I took the soundcard out of my dad's old computer. Now, the computer it came out of is old (probably around 1998 if I remember rightly) but I was wondering, if placed in my pc whether it would offer better sound than the onboard sound that my nforce4 motherboard has to offer.

The soundcard is a Sound Blaster Live! So ancient that it's not on the sound blaster website anymore.

Anyway, the cards not going in inless I'm told that the improvement will be worth it.

Any ideas?

[4_Series_Scania]

Well today I took the soundcard out of my dad's old computer. Now, the computer it came out of is old (probably around 1998 if I remember rightly) but I was wondering, if placed in my pc whether it would offer better sound than the onboard sound that my nforce4 motherboard has to offer.

The soundcard is a Sound Blaster Live! So ancient that it's not on the sound blaster website anymore.

Anyway, the cards not going in inless I'm told that the improvement will be worth it.

Any ideas?

If anything mate, it'll make your PC slower!

The Nforce 4 has 8 channels of AC'97 audio built in, crap by the standards set by cards such as the Audigy series, but, way better than an old Soundblaster from 1998!!!

I doubt you'd even find XP drivers for it mate.

Hit it with a large hammer & post the picture so I know you hav'nt been so silly.  ;)

[Woodlouse2002]

Thought that might be the case. I'll hit it with a hammer tomorrow. Bit windy for that sort of larking around now.

[cheesegrater]

If anything mate, it'll make your PC slower!

The Nforce 4 has 8 channels of AC'97 audio built in, crap by the standards set by cards such as the Audigy series, but, way better than an old Soundblaster from 1998!!!

I doubt you'd even find XP drivers for it mate.

Hit it with a large hammer & post the picture so I know you hav'nt been so silly.  ;)

Why would it make the PC slower? When you replace software with hardware you make things faster.

BTW there are drivers for XP.

http://us.creative.com/support/download ... &x=33&y=16

I don't know what has better sound quality. You would have to test that yourself. Usually speakers make a bigger difference than sound cards. Until you start using advanced features like 5.1, 7.1, or EAX or you record music it will sound the same.

However, if I had the choice between onboard audio and Sound Blaster Live, I would take the Sound Blaster. I certainly wouldn't call Sound Blaster Live ancient. Sound Blaster Audigy uses an imroved Sound Blaster Live processor (EMU10K1 vs EMU10K2) so I don't know how you can call Audigy the "current standard" and Live "ancient crap".

Also, Live was released in 1998, but it was around for many years after that. Audigy was released in 2001 but it is still around. Sound Cards have a much longer life than Video Cards.

[GeForce]

Cheesegrater, can you change that link to:

http://tinyurl.com/m66r2

please! It's make the page huuuuuuge LOL

Jon

[Woodlouse2002]

So do I install it or no?

[Gunny04]

install it, I had a sound blaster live 5.1..... until it broke and fried my old computer (Yea sometimes ebay cant be trusted) lol Cheers, Gunny

[cheesegrater]

install it, I had a sound blaster live 5.1..... until it broke and fried my old computer (Yea sometimes ebay cant be trusted) lol Cheers, Gunny

How does a soundcard fry a computer?

[Gunny04]

Well lets say I went to upgrade the drivers in it (Install the things it should come with) and it wouldnt do it, saying it didnt exist.... okay fine, 3 days later while tampering with Heatsink and such it wouldnt boot up, I reformatted like 15 times, but it gave me blue screen with error code, I ripped the system down to stock, and WHALLA worked... this was after I remembered the sound card driver issue, but by then my computer was overheating like crazy and wasnt stable, shortly after it wouldnt post anymore.... The sound card itself caused me to do a bunch of stuff and resulted ultimately in the death of the computer... Still with me on that!? Cheers, Gunny

EDIT: I am officially, a computer moron..... hehe! I could have just pulled all my addon stuff out until it worked, and I'd still have the computer..... but my stupidity kicked in... so shoot me!

[4_Series_Scania]

So do I install it or no?

No, use the AC'97 on-board audio which will perform better than the old soundblaster.

Photo's !!!  ;)

[757200ba]

All what you saying its ok, but......remember this, i also have a sound blaster live on my pc, and my motherboard (ABIT AN8 ) has also tha ac97 7.1 whatever.My opinion is this the sound coming from the SB is much better and no problems attached, usalyy the ac97 with the menus always get into conflict with Windows.For last, and the most important, ac97 uses memory form your processor so ac 97 it will drain power form your processor, the SB has it own processor so ......the rest is easy to find.So before you use the hammer think twice i did and its true.
Hope it helped!
CHEERS

[cheesegrater]

Well lets say I went to upgrade the drivers in it (Install the things it should come with) and it wouldnt do it, saying it didnt exist.... okay fine, 3 days later while tampering with Heatsink and such it wouldnt boot up, I reformatted like 15 times, but it gave me blue screen with error code, I ripped the system down to stock, and WHALLA worked... this was after I remembered the sound card driver issue, but by then my computer was overheating like crazy and wasnt stable, shortly after it wouldnt post anymore.... The sound card itself caused me to do a bunch of stuff and resulted ultimately in the death of the computer... Still with me on that!? Cheers, Gunny

EDIT: I am officially, a computer moron..... hehe! I could have just pulled all my addon stuff out until it worked, and I'd still have the computer..... but my stupidity kicked in... so shoot me!

I know what that feels like. A few years ago my video card died, so I put it my backup Hercules card, but the bloody card wouldn't fit completely, and it damaged my AGP slot. I got a replacement card, but I couldn't play FS2002 because there was so many artifacts.

[Gunny04]

Wow... that sucked cheese..... Cheers, Gunny