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Sound Card problems

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by samuelfisher2000

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I have window 98 SE and put in a Sound Blaster 16 PCI sound card, I had a 64 bit sound card before. My sound card stopped working so I installed a the new sound card. I removed the old driver and installed the new one. I also accidently deleted a program called GT interactive. My sound card is not working. When I try to reinstall, after it tries to update windows drivers, it gives me the message the file you are trying to open is already in use by another program, quit the program and try again later. I click cancel and it again will try to update windows drivers and this time return with the message: setup could not detect any Sound Blaster harware, Yet it had detected it at startup. The card appears to be firmly in the PCI slot. When I try to use programs that have sound such as my scrabble game it either gives me the message failed to initialize sound engine, or sound cannot open audio device another program may be using it. I don't know why my other sound card stopped working it was not very old. What does the GT interactive program do? I'm thinking it is related to my scrabble game. Could I have a compatability problem? I have a 16 bit sound card and DDR SDRAM memory. What do you recommend.

2 replies

by thechas

I suspect that you have remnants of the driver for the old sound card.

The proper procedure for switching hardware is:
Open device manager,
Select the device to be removed,
Click on remove.
Make sure that any related devices are also removed.
(a sound card can have 3 or more entries in device manager)

Close device manager, DO NOT REBOOT.

Check Control Panel Add/Remove programs for software related to the device and remove it.

Shut down and physically remove the hardware.

Re-boot, and make sure that the system boots properly.
For sound cards, watch the boot screens for errors, and jot them down for reference.
Look in device manager for any yellow "?" or "!". correct5 the issue, or remove the device.

If you had errors on the boot screens, you may need to edit autoexec.bat or config.sys to remove DOS mode driver calls for the old hardware.
For Windows 98, you can use either msconfig, or sysedit to access the files and remove the old driver commands.

Repeat the above until the system boots clean.

If needed, install the driver before the hardware.
Otherwise, shut down and install the new hardware.

Boot up, and install the proper driver.

Now, for your problem:
Go ahead and follow the above even though you will be re-installing the same sound card.

If you still have problems, un-install the card again, and run a registry checker such as Norton Win-Doctor, or V-Com Fix-It to clean any problem items from the system registry.

Chas

by lyallaust

Try booting the system into safe mode.
When the PC is starting up you press F8 after the memory test but before you see the blue "starting windows 98" screen. I find it easiest just to keep pressing the key until the menu appears.

Safe mode does not bother loading silly things like video or sound card drivers.
Once you have said OK to the few messages that comes up, go into the Device Manager. I find it quickest in 98 to RIGHT click the My Computer icon, select Properties and then click the Device Manager tab.

Remove ALL devices listed under the "Sound, Game and Video" listing (it is a single header, not multiple groups).

Reboot and give it the appropriate disk when prompted.

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