Sound cards

The software will run on Windows-compatible PCs, under Windows 95, 98, or NT 4.0. Recommended configuration is 486 DX 66, 16 MB RAM (64 MB RAM for NT), SVGA monitor (16-bit colors with 640x480 minimum resolution), 4X CD-ROM, video card, sound card, and speakers. A Web browser (Netscape Navigator 4.0 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0) must be available to access the Index of Learning Styles component. 

Sound card/audio Monitor/video Motherboards Modems BIOS... 

Sound cards fypicaly have a joystick port volume control, and audtoinpuVouput jacks. and vohxne control. 

Playback-only sound cards have headphone output jacks, bieout jacks. 

The line between integrated and nonintegrated system boards is quickly becoming blurred. Many of what would normally be called "nonintegrated" system boards now incorporate the most commonly used circuitry (e.g. IDE and floppy controllers, serial controllers, and sound cards) onto the motherboard itself. 

Device drivers are small pieces of software that are loaded to allow the computer to talk to hardware devices. Drivers control and understand these hardware devices. For example, if you want DOS to be able to use a sound card, a driver needs to be loaded for it. When you load a driver, it is allocated memory from the conventional memory area. The problem is thatyour applications use this area to run in. If you have too many drivers loaded, you may not have enough conventional memory to run your programs. We will address this problem later in this chapter, in the section titled "Memory Optimization."... 

Sound Card/Audio MonitorA/ideo Motherboards Modems BIOS USB NIC CMOS... 

Every new MCA device you can install will come with an option diskette. An option diskette contains the device-specific configuration files for the device being installed. For example, if you are going to install a sound card, the option... 

The VL-Bus expansion card is also easily identifiable. The card is a bit longer than an ISA card and has one extra connector (the 32-bit, local connector). Figure 5.9 shows two typical VL-Bus expansion cards. These cards are typically used for video cards (as previously mentioned), SCSI host bus adapters, and multimedia expansion cards (sound cards, hard drive and CD-ROM controllers, and video input devices) because of the amount of throughput they need. Typically, you ll find no more than three VL-Bus connectors on a motherboard (mixed with other bus types). Any more than three and the processor wouldn t be able to keep up with the bus transfers. 

C. LPTl uses IRQ 7 by default, which conflicts with the sound card setting. 

The first category of devices we ll discuss is multimedia devices. What is multi-media The simplest answer is multiple media. That is, it s a way of communicating information using more than one form, such as some combination of video, pictures, sound, and text. Several devices are included in the category, including CD-ROM drives, sound cards, speakers, and microphones. 

Just as there are devices to convert computer signals into printouts and video information, there are devices to convert those signals into sound. These devices are known as sound cards. There are many different manufacturers making sound cards, but the standard has been set by Creative Labs with their SoundBlaster series of cards. As a matter of fact, the MFC standards specify a SoundBlaster-compatible sound card. 

When installing a sound card, usually you set the IRQ, DMA, and FO addresses with software (although some of the older, ISA cards use jumpers). Table 6.2 details the default settings of a typical SoundBlaster sound card. 

In addition to producing sound, sound cards have another capability that is often overlooked. The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI—usually pronounced middy ) technology incorporated into most sound cards allows PCs to talk with (and in some cases, control) musical devices. With the addition of a special adapter cable that plugs into the game port on most sound cards, a PC can use external sound modules to produce sounds. MIDI technologies are used by most electronic keyboard players and professional musicians. However, you don t need to have an electronic keyboard or external sound module to play MIDI sounds. Most sound cards include a set of ICs that incorporate some of the sound-generating circuitry found in most electronic keyboards. 

Besides addressing resources, there is one other resource you need to make sure is available physical space. There must be adequate space in the computer for the device you are installing. If you are installing a disk drive, there must be an open disk bay available. If you are installing an expansion card (for example, a sound card), you must make sure that you have an open slot available. Also, in the case of computers that use multiple bus types (ISA/PCI for example), the available slot must be of the same type as the card being installed. 

The various tools that you can use to discover the available resources on a PC can make installing new hardware a lot easier. Unfortunately, the tools are not much use unless you understand the information that they present. In this section, we will discuss the various resources that can be used by PC components (including that new sound card you are installing) and how those resources are used. 

COM 4, network interface cards, sound cards, and just about anything else. 

Direct memory access (DMA) is a method used by peripherals to place data in memory without utilizing (or bothering) the CPU. As an example, a sound card can buffer music in memory while the CPU is busy recalculating a spreadsheet. The DMA peripheral has its own processor to move the data. It uses dead time on the ISA bus to perform the transfer. At the hardware level, DMA is quite complex, but the important feature to remember is that the transfer of data is accomplished without intervention from the CPU. 

The saying If all else fails, read the directions exists because most people assume they know how to do something, even if they ve never done it before. This statement is especially true for service technicians. Most technicians think that if they ve installed one sound card, they ve installed them all. Even worse, they won t admit that they don t know how to repair something. 

When looking through the instructions for this information, you need to find the section of the installation manual that deals with configuration (you may need to look in the index or table of contents to find it). Once you find it, see if you can match the resources that you have to a set of jumper settings. For example, if you have IRQ 5 and FO address 220 available, you need to see if your sound card can support those settings. If it can support them, find out which jumpers need to be moved. If it can t, you have to go back and pick a different set of available resources and repeat the process. 

These settings might be contained in a configuration table in the documentation. Examples of a sound card s configuration tables are shown in Tables 9.5 and 9.6. We ll assume that there are two sets of jumpers one for the IRQ setting another for the FO address (labeled J1 and J2, respectively). Each set has five pairs of pins each. 

Now that your sound card is configured, you can finally mount the device into the computer. Mounting a device usually means attaching it to the computer s case with some kind of fastener and attaching the device to an interface. In this case, it means installing an expansion card into an expansion slot and securing it with a screw. 

In our case (continuing with our sound card example), you need to install the sound card drivers and software for the sound card you just installed. Find the disks that came with the sound card (they will probably be in a white envelope inside the sound card s box). Plug all the cords back in and turn the computer on. After the computer is done booting, insert the first disk into the X drive (where X is whatever drive you place the disk in) and, depending on whether the program uses DOS or Windows, do one of the following ... 

Observation is the simplest method of testing. It involves observing the device and seeing if the device functions as it s supposed to. For example, if your sound card is installed properly, you should be able to hear sounds when you play your favorite games. Or you should be able to play sound files with the utility that came with your sound card. 

Sherlock Holmes said it best When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. In our example, the only device drivers were for the sound card, so it s probable that the sound card was configured improperly. If you had multiple device drivers in the configuration files, you would have to test each possibility separately to find out. Troubleshooting with REM statements is a process of elimination. One by one, you must eliminate the impossible, so that you can find the improbable. 

Sound cards are traditionally one of the most problem-ridden components in a PC. They demand a lot of PC resources and are notorious for being very inflexible in their configuration. The most common sound card-related problems will involve resource conflicts (IRQ, DMA, or I/O address). 

Luckily, most sound card vendors are quite aware of the problems and ship very good diagnostic utilities to help resolve them. Use your PC troubleshooting skills to determine the conflict, and then reconfigure until you have found an acceptable set of resources that are not in use. 

You install a newly purchased sound card into your computer, but upon rebooting you find that the new device is not recognized by the system. Moreover, your modem, which has always worked perfectly, has stopped functioning. What is probably the problem ... 

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