Sound card drivers

Brendan Mitchell · Post by **Brendan Mitchell** » 6 Feb 2002 12:27 am

I recently formatted my computer and after loading windows98se found my sound card not working.I have a disk but the computer does not or won't read it.I don't know the name of the sound card and the driver disk is labelled Eagle Driver Installation CD ROM.
Would appreciate any help
Regards Brendan

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 6 Feb 2002 3:05 am

Windows should have detected it and "found new hardware". Check the system properties and see what is shown for the sound card. There may be a conflict and the reason it's not being installed. You can also try a manual add new hardware and see if windows finds it.

I've never heard of an Eagle sound card, not that there isn't one.

Tom Diemer · Post by **Tom Diemer** » 6 Feb 2002 4:32 am

The only Eagle sound card I've heard of, is the ESS 1938 card. You may have to look at the card to see if that is the number on it.

I don't believe WIN98 included a driver for this card.

If so, I found a driver for it here.
http://www.akatech.com.au/box-drivers/ess1938.zip

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 6 Feb 2002 5:08 am

Compaq uses "ESS" sound chips on the motherboard on some models. The "ESS" is "Ensoniq Sound Systems". My 5170 Compaq Presario came with the ESS system but I later went to a separate SoundBlaster that worked much better.

Jim Phelps · Post by **Jim Phelps** » 6 Feb 2002 8:43 am

Here's a long way to do it, but if your software CD doesn't self-install the driver correctly, it's usually the only way. By the way, you use this method to install any kind of driver if need be, not just for sound cards.

Right-click on My Computer on your desktop and click on Properties. Click on the Device Manager tab at the top. Look down the list for Sound, Video and Game Controllers.

There's probably a yellow exclamation point beside it, that's called a "bang" and means a driver isn't installed correctly or at all.
Click once to highlight the line for the soundcard. At the bottom, click Properties. Then click the Driver tab at the top. Then click the Update Driver button.

The next dialog box tells you you're going to look for a driver, well you knew that already, click Next.

Click in the white circle for "Search for a better driver than the one your device is using now" and click Next. Check the box for Search in Specific Location.

Click the pull-down menu's little upside-down triangle and select the drive letter of your CD-ROM if that's where your driver file is, or the correct drive of wherever else the driver file is if you downloaded the driver from the link in the earlier post. Then click the Browse button.

In the next box, find the drive letter for your CD-ROM again (or again whatever the location of the driver file is, if you've saved it on a floppy or your hard drive).

If you've got the driver file on a floppy, click once on the filename to highlight it.

If you're using your CD, click the + sign next to the drive letter and find the folder probably called Win9x or maybe Win98. Doubleclick it and look for a folder called drivers. Click it once to highlight it. The OK button on the dialog box should now no longer be grayed out, if this is correct, click the OK button, then Next.

If the correct driver is in this folder, (or if your floppy contains the correct file) it'll load and you're done. If not, you'll get "Windows was unable to find the correct driver". In that case, click Back and keep looking in other folders on your CD-ROM until you find it and it installs.[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 06 February 2002 at 10:13 AM.]

Michael Garnett · Post by **Michael Garnett** » 6 Feb 2002 1:07 pm

and if you don't feel like doing that, go to your local comptuer store and buy a new one for 20 bucks.

Garnett

Jim Phelps · Post by **Jim Phelps** » 6 Feb 2002 1:52 pm

And maybe have to do it anyway. You don't get much of a sound card for 20 bucks, you can get a cheapy for that but the cheaper the item, generally the crappier and buggier to install is the software that comes with it. Installing a driver like this really is not that difficult and sooner or later anyone who uses a computer and installs anything will most likely find it very useful to know. Or, as Michael said, take the easy way out and just go to your local computer store and buy one, a decent one is around $50-$150 (a Soundblaster Live Value or newer equivalent is about $50 from the discount houses) on a new sound card...and still someday most likely have to know how to install a driver "the hard way".[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 06 February 2002 at 02:47 PM.]

Brendan Mitchell · Post by **Brendan Mitchell** » 7 Feb 2002 9:20 pm

Thanks to all.Am now trying these suggestions.
Regards Brendan