The Sounds of Silence

With sincere apologies to Simon & Garfunkle.

The sound card worked until I was forced to reformat the hard drive and re-install Win98SE. The system is an AT&T (yup, I'm the guy that has the only one they made, I think) Globalyst 640 with 96 MB and a Pentium (no Roman numeral) 100.

The only thing I could find on the card was "Crystal 4289 PCI". Plug and Pray detects something but it won't tell me what it is other than "Other Device" with no driver.

I'm an OK smart guy with a regressive computer gene. I have checked the other posts with "sound" in them and none of them seemed to be appropriate to my situation.

So, in the mortal words of Mr. T, "Pitty the fool" and help me out here. The reward I offer is my undying awe.

 

All you need is the correct driver for the Sound card. GO online to one of the search engines and type in "Crystal Audio". Did a search on Cirrus Logic's web site and the only model that is clos is a CS4280 at this location:

http://www.cirruslogic.com/Drivers/audiodrv/index_new.cfm?pg=2&OpSysID=1&Archived=1

 

Downloaded the driver. Unzipped it. Ran the set-up. Re-booted. Nothing.

Did the Start>Settings>Control Panel>New Hardware thing and pointed the find-a-driver dialog box to C:\Download\Drivers where the little sucker resides. It couldn't find it.

I know that I need a driver but my computer seems not interested in using any that I have led it to. I be frustrated.

 

If you go to Device Manager, do you see any sound card listing and if so what's the status. Are there any other bad status indicators such as a question mark next to the modem listing or port listing?

 

Good day, Inspector. Dooright, here!

I see no "sound card" per se.

I do see under "Other Devices" an entry for "PCI Multimedia Audio Device". It comes complete with a yellow circle and an "!" notice.

I could probably just swap out the sound card for one that I have a disk for, but this is beginning to bug me.

Thanx. Horse is awaiting me.

 

The "PCI Multimedia Audio Device" is your sound card. It usually is better to use the manufacture's drivers, but have you tried to manually find the right driver in Microsoft's list? Through the properites for "PCI Multimedia Audio Device" or through "add new hardware" you can do that. Didn't see if you said if you tried that. If you can't find the right drivers for your card, or unsure of what madel you have, look for the FCC ID on the sound card and look up your model and manufacture HERE. Also, once you find the correct model number you can try searching the archives at TSG using the model # and see if any threads come up. Someone might have asked where to find those drives before. (never hurts to try. )

 

Found the s/n. CHH 110657

FCC says no such number.

I'll surf Google and Dogpile for a while. Perhaps, just perhaps the info is out there on the web. But first, I will search TSG. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

No one else has the same serial number as you, so I am afraid to tell you won't get anywhere fast. What you need for the fcc web page is the FCC ID located on all electronic devices. I says FCC (with the second c inside of the first c) right before a number. Going to the FCC web site with this number will tell you the make and model. Real handy if you don't know who made it...

 

I saw the logo you describe but there was no number at or near it. I will pop the top again and take another look but first I have got to finish some T-day family stuff. Thanks for sticking with me.

 

No problem...

If you found the fcc symbol, then the ID has to be somewhere around. I am pretty sure every electronic device that is manufactured in the US has to have a FCC ID. If you can't find it anywhere, then I don't know any other way to find the make/model if it doesn't say anywhere else on there. There might be a program that will find it out for you, but it might just say something like "GENERIC PCI Multimedia device" so I don't know what to say. If add new hardware can't find the appropriate driver, then you need to know the make/model to either download the driver from the manufacture (which it is always better to use the manufacture's driver) or select it from the list in add new hardware. You can try using the generic sound card driver that is in the list. Other than that, I don't know what else to say... sorry.

 

Also, if you are completely stumped, you could always pick up a new generic sound card... Or there are some good ones that aren't too expensive that you could get. You should be able to get a Sound Blaster 16 PCI for $20 dollars or so. You might even be able to find a used one for under $10!

 

Overstock.com is sending me an $11 sound card. It's the smart thing to do. I would anticipate no problems installing it so I guess this thread can be closed unless you want to hear that the new card is installed and working. Your choice.

But thanks to all for the fine help and suggestions. TSG is quickly becoming my favorite web site.

 

I have nothing further to say, I just wanted to pump up my posting number. At 57, I am unacustomed to being called junior anything.