17.7 Installing a Sound Card
A sound card physically installs just
as any other expansion card does. Some sound cards require many
system resources, so keep the following guidelines in mind:
- If you are building a new system
-
Install the PCI sound card before you install other components such
as network adapters or SCSI host adapters, allowing the sound card to
make first claim on system resources. Although Plug and Play usually
does a good job of juggling resources, we have sometimes experienced
resource conflicts when installing a sound card in a system that was
already heavily loaded with other adapters. If that happens, the best
course is to disable all adapters in the Device Manager (except
essential ones such as the video card and IDE interface), physically
remove those adapters, install and configure the sound card, and
finally reinstall the other adapters one by one. If your CMOS Setup
program allows you to assign an IRQ to a particular PCI slot, use
that feature to assign IRQ 5 to the slot where you plan to install
the sound card. If you experience conflicts or improper functioning,
try installing the sound card in a different PCI slot.
- If you are replacing an existing sound card
-
Before you remove the card, delete it
in the Device Manager (if you are running Windows 9X) and delete all
its drivers from the hard disk. Turn the PC off, take off the cover,
physically remove the old sound card, and start the PC. Verify that
all vestiges of the old sound card are gone. If the sound card is
embedded, run CMOS Setup and disable it in BIOS. With all that done,
turn off the PC again and physically install the new sound card.
Start the system again and install the drivers for it.
 |
Except for physically removing and replacing the sound card, we
recommend following the same procedure when updating sound card
drivers. That is, never upgrade sound card drivers. Instead, remove
the old ones and install the new ones as a clean install. We have
encountered problems more than once when attempting to upgrade
existing drivers. A clean install avoids those problems.
|
|
- If you are installing a sound card in a motherboard that has embedded sound
-
Before you install a sound card in a system with embedded sound,
disable the embedded sound adapter either in CMOS Setup or by
changing a jumper on the motherboard (or both). Every motherboard we
know that includes embedded PCI sound allows you to disable sound in
BIOS. Enabling or disabling sound usually has no effect on interrupts
because embedded PCI sound uses one or two shareable PCI interrupts.
Older motherboards, however, may have embedded ISA sound adapters,
which may use fixed ISA interrupts. Such motherboards may or may not
allow sound to be disabled and the interrupt made available for other
adapters. If it is possible to disable the interrupt, doing so
usually requires removing a physical jumper on the motherboard.
|
When installing a sound card, remember to connect the CD audio cable
from the Audio Out jack on the back of the CD-ROM drive to the CD
Audio jack on the sound card. If you have two CD or DVD drives
installed, you can connect Audio Out from the second drive to the Aux
In jack on the sound card, if present. We always forget to connect
these cables, which is a good reason to test the system before
putting the cover back on.
|
|
|
Main Menu
|
