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[Hal MacArgle <halinux AT kvinet.com>]

Greetings: Will annotate comment my two cents worth..


On 04-26, Sindi Keesan wrote:
> I stuck all my Creative sound cards into a computer one at a time and ran
> a diagnostic program which lists IRQs.  I found seven of them which are
> already set to a default IRQ5, 220, the one that can be jumpered to IRQs
> 10, 11, 12 or 15, and four newer cards (half of which are Vibra) that are
> IRQ2 which conflicts with Cascade.  Are these going to work only with
> Windows and PnP?

> Is there any advantage to using the newer Creative cards
> (with numbers higher than 1740, such as in the 4000s)?  The older ones
> don't require opening up the computer to switch from line out to speaker
> out since they have either 4 holes or a volume dial.

        I've had Creative SB16's bundled with drivers that didn't
work. Had to hit the Web to find the correct one.. Had one card with
a fourth jack that was for surround speakers only w/the proper s/w to
use it.. Creative's colour coding has changed through the years too.

> Are the older cards with large heat sinks likely to sound better when used 
> with nonpowered speakers?  We have actually been plugging in not speakers 
> but old boomboxes that have line in (and broken tape decks), and using the 
> volume controls on those.  They sound better than our computer speakers.

        A heat sink means they actually are using a chip with some
power output.. Some "power amps" are not heat sinked. Bad news if
using non-amplified speakers.. Any "hi-fi" box usually better than
any "pc" speaker setup except have one Altec-Lansing with a woofer
that isn't bad.. Believe the newer, especially on board, sound _needs_
amplified speakers.. Read some support 6 speaker surround.. 



> Thanks for any suggestions.  I want to put in sound cards with the highest 
> chance of working, before closing up my four new linux computers.  It 
> simplifies life if they all have the same IRQ (and no IRQ conflicts).

        To me the highest chance of working is the one that works,
especially with sound.. IBM didn't design the PC to make our IRQ life
easy, and pNp has made it worse IMHO... <g>



> Do you know if I should have the 'msel' jumper on or off?  I have two
> 1740s with it set one way each.  I was able to download old motherboard
> info from Creative a few years ago but can't find it now.  I have SB-PRO
> jumper settings printed out.

        Every card I've seen; 'msel' is used to change the default
midi port, MPU401 UART, in case of a conflict.. Believe 0x330 usually
default jumpered to 0x300 - at least on the SB16 I have.. That's,
usually, not a problem as there are plenty of I/O ports, but 0x300
used to be quite "standard" for NIC's..

> I doubt anyone else on this list cares about my sound cards and hope I am 
> not bothering you with too many questions.  Feel free to send me something 
> Russian to translate.

        Sound cards? What does Russian Roulette look like in
Cyrillic?? Good luck. If the shoe fits - wear it....

Cheers,

    Hal - in Terra Alta, WV - Slackware GNU/Linux 9.0   (2.4.20)
           
             Anyone can pile complexity upon complexity;
                  only a genius can truly simplify..
.