Problems with my new computer.

[Xeoneex]

Ok, so I spent lotsa money on a new gaming machine, but I have problems that I can't quite figure out.

First off, I have a crappy onboard SoundMax soundcard and well, I have 2 gforce 8800GTS cards in my machine, and absolutely NO room for a single card. So I go purchase a Sound Blaster Live! 24 bit external sound device. I hook it up, install the drivers, and what do I get? Problems. The sound is all scratchy, movies played go fast and slow, sound popping.

So I contact Sound Blaster support, they tell me to RMA it. My cousin comes over this last weekend and we do some tests. We determined it was defective, but we do one last test. Installed it on my brothers lower end machine. it works perfectly fine. I'm now in a state of hectic turmoil trying to figure out what to do. Send it back for RMA or try to troubleshoot this on Anantech?

Thats my first problem, my second kind of goes with the first. I basically have no treble or bass control. Even when I installed that soundblaster I couldn't control the base, but the good thing was with the soundblaster sound controls I was able to reduce the bass, but I couldn't mess with treble. I dont know what to do, my cousin is way too busy to help me anymore and I can't keep going to him for help anyway.

I don't know where else to go and as I said I'm going out of my mind trying to figure all this crap out.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Send the card back for a refund and don't buy another creative card.

 

[Xeoneex]

Ok, but then I need a soundcard. What would you recommend for an external sound card?

 

[natto fire]

Are you using XP or Vista?

Have you tried using different USB ports?

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

sounds like you have a lot of noise on your board. How many slots do you have total? Try plugging the external into the usb thats on the front of the case (assuming you have one). If you wanna give the onboard another try- download the latest driver for it from the company, and the latest bios as well- usually helps, and the onboard sound gets updated quite quickly i could imagine.

 

[Xeoneex]

Originally posted by: Comdrpopnfresh
sounds like you have a lot of noise on your board. How many slots do you have total? Try plugging the external into the usb thats on the front of the case (assuming you have one). If you wanna give the onboard another try- download the latest driver for it from the company, and the latest bios as well- usually helps, and the onboard sound gets updated quite quickly i could imagine.

Tried all of that. USB ports are fine. I have 6 total, 4 in back 2 in front. I tried 1 in the front and one in the back. Drivers are current drivers. I updated all the motherboard drivers when I first installed everything which wasn't too long ago. As I said I'm not sure what else to do, other than sending the device back and getting a completely different brand of external sound device but I dont know what else is good other than creative.

 

[sabka]

return the creative junk and get yourself a nice firewire or USB m-audio box
M-Audio Products

 

[Xeoneex]

I'm not familiar with firewire. I don't know if my system even has firewire ports on it. I haven't really checked though because I don't have anything that is firewire.

 

[Trevante]

There should be a firewire port right above your eSATA port.

 

[Xeoneex]

Well if i DO have a firewire port, what sound device should I get?

 

[swatoke]

Did you make sure you disabled the onboard sound in the bios?

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

firewire ports look like usb ones with a scrunched end rather than a complete rectangle. Even if you don't have one on the back or on the front of the case, check the mobo for the 7-pin (is that right?) header/pins. USB are usually marked in blue, but firewire are usually red (regardless of color they are different). If you see one it may just be a matter of buying a controller less expansion card. ooops- no free pci slots! You won't need the card slot, just the bracket hole in the back. the average pci port looks like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage...e+SPP+100+ATX+AMD+Motherboard+-+Retail
(its the dongle on the far right)