The boss gave me his computer because his home Dell is having issues. Specifically the sound card, which came with the PC, a Soundblaster AWE 64 PCI card, and is not some integrated POS, is not responding properly. Windows XP will not output to it, so browsers, sound schemes, etc. do not respond or even give you the option to play. However fucking iTunes will play sound all day long. Any idea what could be causing this?

So far I have reinstalled updated drivers and software, yanked the card and put it back in a different slot, etc. Nothing. Any suggestions? Having difficulties finding this specific problem by Googling, which usually works.

5/24/2010 10:10:57 PM

Are there any onboard sound devices that need to be disabled in BIOS? What about your mixer settings? Is there an audio channel that is muted? Goto advanced settings in sound settings to check.

5/25/2010 7:45:36 AM

No onboard sound at all.

As for the mixer and sound settings, no channels are muted.

5/25/2010 8:53:06 AM

I had no idea they made a PCI variant of this - it was orginally engineered to ISA. Don't make 'em like they used to.

Have you tried forcing hardware uninstall from the control panel. After forcing uninstall go ahead and reinstall the drivers then reboot. Rebooting should bring you to the install hardware wizard, which hopefully will overwrite the previous configuration and get it back to normal.

5/25/2010 10:23:56 AM

If theres no onboard just install matching drivers. This is why we hate drivers...

Check bios, sometimes there are weird settings. Also check windows sound, might be some weird output options there, esp if system sounds arent playing but other stuff is. Theres probably something somewhere you are missing.

At worst, get a new sound card. They arnt that expensive.

5/25/2010 10:32:00 AM

^^I may have the wrong SB card, it may be a Live. Its been a couple of days, since I farted around with it that I posted. I'll verify later.

As for output settings the thing is when I go to Windows Sound and go through the themes and hit play to preview the sounds, the play button is grayed out and it doesn't show any sound device. But Device Manager shows no devices that need to be installed. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers.

I guess tonight I will physically remove the card uninstall Creative/SB everything, including drivers, and then reinstall and go to Dell site and get original drivers. Maybe this will help?

5/25/2010 11:50:09 AM

i forget with xp, but I know in vista and 7 the audio service is a service. Is it running?

5/25/2010 12:34:50 PM

^^if it's a dell that may be your problem. Their branded equipment always gave me retarded problems.

Of course so did/does iTunes

5/25/2010 6:00:42 PM

Wow... AWE 64 is old as shit. I think I had that in my old PC from 98...

5/25/2010 11:53:57 PM