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Sound card freezes Windows

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First post, by mike76

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Hello!
I have a retro PC : it's a Slot1-Pentium II , 128mb, S3-trio and a Sound Blaster clone "Crystal cx4235" (ISA).

Under DOS everything works like a charm, tested many games - the sound card is being recognized correctly every time (as a Sound Blaster Pro if I recall correctly)

But under Windows ( tested first Windows 98se and now Windows 2000 SP4 Pro) it won't - it freezes.
I figured out, that the system freezes only when a sound is being played as long no sounds are played the system works
(I switched to "No sounds"-Scheme under "Sounds and Multimedia" to bypass the Windows-login "chimes" wav (or how it is called).

The card has been detected as "Crystal WDM MPU-401 Compatible".
I temporary disabled the sound card (MPU,Crystal WDM Audio Control etc.. in the Control Panel) the system works fine but of course I have no sounds...

There are no conflicts, the card makes same problems with windows 98se and windows2000 (fresh install)
I tried every possible driver I found here ( http://vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=69 )
Interesting fact: This is my own old PC (mainboard and sound card) I used in the late '90s and the card worked perfectly under Win95, 98 and also Windows 2000 back then!

Does anyone have an idea?
I was so happy to see my old PC still works but the sound card drives me crazy 🙁
-mike

Reply 3 of 7, by mike76

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yes, I already disabled the ports (in the BIOS) and also changing the IRQs in Windows didn't help 🙁
After I connected a headset I can even hear that Windows begins to play the sound but it immediately freezes (I can hear maybe a millisecond of the sound file)

Reply 4 of 7, by mike76

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UPDATE:
I bought another sound card (ESS SoundDrive on ISA) and installed a fresh copy of Windows 2000 (SP4).
The new card has been recognized and drivers installed, but every time when a sound is being played the system freezes...
I had to disable the sound driver under Control Panel (in Safe Mode) and now I'm able to login and Windows runs, but I have no sounds of course..
As I said, the hardware is ok (both cards work under DOS)...
Any ideas?

Reply 5 of 7, by Caluser2000

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Try an earlier service pack or the original unpatched w2k.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 6 of 7, by mike76

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YES! I found it out! 😀
I decided to reset the BIOS (set it to default settings) and this made the trick!
Interesting thing: I've already checked all BIOS settings multiple times and after the reset noting actually has changed (or I can't see any changes)
but now everything works!
-thanks, Mike

Reply 7 of 7, by Caluser2000

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Awesome.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

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